So...uh...long story short: how does one care for stitches?
Long story long: My boyfriend has this weird condition, preauricular sinus pits. Basically, he had these tiny holes near his ears that often got infected and would swell up and looked like cysts, and when they'd drain, this big gross popcorn-y looking pus would come out. It's been an ongoing lifelong situation. Just recently one got horrible infected, but was not draining. We freaked out, and took him to see a specialist about it. The doctor walked in the room, glanced at his ear, and said "So...when did you want to schedule that surgery?"(the time before that he had gotten infected, the doctor had him get a CAT scan for the surgery, but my boyfriend chickened out and never got the surgery). This time, he went ahead and got the surgery. That was Monday. The doctor removed a lot of the gross stuff from his ears, and said that he didn't think that he would get an infection(he had previously had a surgery similar to this one, to work on the same problems, but the previous dr botched the whole thing, and my boyfriend's ear pits got super infected), but he prescribed a antibiotic just in case.
Now, we are home, and he is taking the antibiotic twice a day, and we are reapplying the polysporin ointment twice a day. Since last night, the whole area has become pretty swollen, but only on one side. Should we be concerned? He is sleeping now, but I'm about to wake him up so I can clean up the wounds and reapply the ointment, so I'm gonna check for any other signs of an infection(warmth, smell, numbness), but is there anything else we should look out for? I've never had stitches before, so I don't know anything about it. Is this much swelling normal? I can maybe post pictures if need be.