But yeah, I agree with Kim regarding the timing. I'd personally leave the steri-strips in place for 10+days, maybe a bit more, just to make sure it's fine. If the stitches were in for 10days then I'd maybe leave it for 14days. The reason being that the outside of a wound can look healed when the inside really isn't and the inside is at the end of the day what keeps it closed which is probably why you've had this problem.
Just keep your eye out for signs of infection and I'd also keep the wound and strips covered with a dressing and obviously not get them wet. Change the dressing every couple of days, more often if there is a lot of discharge, twice a day if it becomes infected and if it does become infected see a doctor asap and removing the steri-strips is likely to be better in that situation as it stops pus getting stuck under the skin.
And, if you're not already trying it then I'd also suggest Kim's way of having a strip parallel to the wound on either side to hold the rest in place more securely. This doesn't necessarily have to be a steristrip neither if its not going over a wound and so could just be a strip of medical tape and just make it so it looks like ####### all the way along.
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