I thought I had a raging infection of my incisions. They developed red skin around them and were oozy. I freaked out. It was the holiday weekend, so after my numerous calls to page my surgeon went no where, I went to a doc in the box. The doc there said it was an infection, so she cleaned them out (i.e., she scraped the surgical glue off!) and gave me an antibiotic. She told me if the redness got worse, to follow up with my surgeon. So yesterday, the redness got much worse and the incisions looked terrible. I had to go the emergency room of the hospital where I had my surgery to see anyone from my surgical team (isn't that a terrifically inefficient way to see patients!). After 5 hours and 4 different docs/surgeons looking at my incisions, they agreed that it wasn't an infection, just a really nasty reaction to the surgical glue. Hooray! While I'm thrilled that I don't have an infection, I have crazy red, raised and VERY ITCHY spots all around my incisions. I am literally sitting on my hands to keep from scratching. I take benedryl ever 4 hours, which helps, but then I'm sleepy. Anyway, maybe just ranting, but of all the post-op things that I worried about, this was not on my list!

You know, this is what I've been fearing as I have allergies to all sorts of things and what you describe is EXACTLY like my nickel allergy I get from metal buttons on jeans and it ITCHES like mad doesn't it ? the good news is it will dry out quickly and stop itching so hang in there. And by the way VERY RELIEVED for you that it wasn't an infection !!

I'm very sensitive to any kind of tape & was concerned about the steri-strips. I did fine for the first week then the skin around one incision started to itch. I took the steri-strips off & washed my skin well in the shower. Then I developed rectangular raised rashes around each incision. These rashes go beyond where the steri-strips were so I'm sure it was the surgical glue. At least my incisions look very good with no oozing or separating. I don't want to take Benadryl during the day so I've been alternating hydrocortisone cream, Benadryl cream & Lanacane cream to calm the itching. For the most part the rashes are better except the skin further out around the largest incision developed patchy, very itchy redness today.

There's a few threads on this allergy here, but short answer is to get yourself a prescription for triamcinolone acetonide cream. I had hives from the tape all over my back, sides and stomach, that I'm still battling the remains of - and I'm 5 weeks out. They will make you insane and really, there are so many other things to make you crazy right after surgery. :-)