Surgical sutures or stitches are usually removed 7-14 days after surgery.
Removal of stitches should be done ONLY by a physician or physician assistant after examination and under sterile comditions in order to avoid complications including opening of the wound, infections, and even life threatening conditions. The physician will evaluate the stitches and surgical wound to determine whether it has healed sufficiently that if the sutures are removed the wound will not open. Stitches are usually snipped with small suture scissors and pulled out with forceps under standard surgical sterile conditions. In areas of high skin stress, like the knee, shoulder, elbow or ankle, and thus, typically after after orthopedic surgery, the surgeon may choose to remove surgical sutures longer than 14-21 days after surgery.
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It depends on the type of stitches that were put in. Some stitch variations, do require a medical professional to assist in the removal of stitches, while other stitches simply dissolve over time.
Most vet are now saying around 10 days. It used to be seven but every animal we have had that had cuts or surgey they tell us to come back in 10 days.
its better to swim or do any type of hard exercise after a week of stich removal