Third abscess drained - feeling frustrated, depressed, and disgusting

These things are the worst! You have every right to be angry and frustrated. Each time my abscess has been drained they have immediately stopped the antibiotics because they had "removed the infection" I do think that some folks are sent home still on them though.

I have a couple questions for you: Do you have Crohns? Who did your surgeries...were they general surgeons? Have you seen a colorectal surgeon? Did they check you for a fistula?

Reoccuring abscesses makes me think you have a fistula and perhaps you need a seton.

A couple things that may help - do the sitz baths or even just a hot bath - if that is not convienant for you - sit on a heating pad (not crazy hot though, cause you can burn yourself) if you are getting drainage and it is irratating your skin, get a tube of Calmoseptine - it is cooling and a wonderful skin protectant.

they are the worst. I had a large abscess, fist size in my right butt cheek. My dr kept telling me for 4months , that i had hemmrhoids. I would go in almost weekly cause the pain, the itching was horrible and kept getting worse. But he would just treat me with hemmrhoid cream and tell me to come back if it changed. He never ever actually looked at my anus to see what the problem was. One evening, my abscess ruptured. I had no idea what it was. I couldnt see it. But it felt better. I did end up in the hosptial the next day as it seemed to rupture again( i think it must have stopped up and then let go) and the emerg dr just shook her head and said it was dreadful. Gave me Flagyl and told me to rest and make an appt with my GP that week.

anyways, now i ahve two fistulas, i have been on countless antibiotics. Everytime they bother me i go to the dr and tell them i need another round of antibiotics.


I sit on heat, soak in as many sitz baths as possible. sometimes i feel like i am pickling myself i sit in so many!! lol

i now have 1 seton and one without. I swear i would take all the ab pain and D over any more abscesses.

I would be so angry as well. And for the record i hate packing. I dont see any point in it. I have been told my numerous drs as long as its draining it, it doesnt need to be packed.So i refuse packing. I cant stand it.

I feel for you.

Hello everyone. Please note this is my first post and i have been dealing with an Abscess and fistula as well. The first time i went to the emergency room was 05/11/12 they gave me pain medicine and sent me home. I kept telling the doctors that i had swelling in the labia area but no one could see it. They suggested going to a colonrectal surgeon, so i did on Monday 05/14/12, he diagnosed it as a fissure and scheduled LIS surgery for May 22. Well i was back in the ER on 05/16/12 because the swelling and pain was so bad i couldn't walk. Again they gave me pain medicine and an antibiotic and sent me home. On 05/18/12 i crawled into my primary care doctors office and she stated she thought i have an abscess in the labia area. She called the ER and had me admitted immediately. They put on high powered antibiotics that friday and by saturday night at 9pm the abscess ruptured and discharged through the vagina. The doctor came into my hospital room and gave me a local in the labia and then stabbed it with a scapula to create more drain holes. (This was excruciating pain). They kept me until my scheduled surgery on Tuesday, but instead of LIS Surgery he drained the Abscess "completely". They sent me home with Antibiotics and Pain Medicine and a Sitz Bath 3 times a day. Six weeks later on 7/2 i was back in the hospital with a reoccurring abscess, this time i knew what it was and they admitted me right away. He did a procedure that night, drained the abscess and actually cut it completely open, and found that i have a fistula causing the reoccurring abscesses. he also put in a seton that i am currently dealing with. I agree with earlier posts in the ugliness of the cuts. My husband of 22 years will not look at the wound because he doesnt want to remember it like that he says. I feel so gross. It has been suggested by many different doctors through the years that i may have Crohn's disease but no one has every treated me for it. I would rather take the medicine and see if it helps then continue to deal with all the symptoms on my own. i am told i have 12 weeks of going to the doctor to have the seton tightened, my first is on Monday 7/16. Any questions i should be asking the doctor that i have not thought of yet? please advise. Thank you.

I have a seton stitch from my rectum to my perineum and another tract draining beside it. I was wondering if you have ever been for an MRI? I was told nothing was there for years until I switched GI's and was sent for an MRI. I have multiple tracts in my recto vaginal septum but am lucky so far to have my surgeon divert things through my perineum. The fistulae tracts are hard to see in that area and MRI is the best way to see what's really going on in there. My surgeon was a woman and I think that helps when dealing with the vaginal area too!

Hello and thank you for responding. NO i have not had an MRI of the area but they have completed two cat scans with the injected dye and oral dyes. I saw my surgeon today for the first tightening of my Seton and he said things appear to be healing on schedule( whatever that means). I am to continue with 3-4 sitz baths per day. I am about out of the antibiotics from the hospital release and the surgeon told me today that he doesnt think i need to continue with antibiotics even though i still have a lot of drainage at this time. I have considered seeing another surgeon but its a he as well because the only woman in the area is booked through september at this time. any thoughts?

The cat scans were what said there was nothing there on me... I suggest asking for an MRI and book with the woman surgeon. Sept. will come sooner than later. I waited from January to the end of June to get my appt. with mine. I'm not saying anything wrong with a man but a women will tend to be more careful in that area, from what i've noticed. For example... my first drainage with no seton the GI(male) was like why didn't she go thro the vagina and i'm like cause it's my vagina!! Now the seton is thro the perineum not my vag so i'm happy I waited to see her!

i will scheduled the appointment and talk to her about an MRI. Thank you for your input.

good luck!!!! If anything changes tho, like fevers, night sweats or pain gets worse don't be afraid to go to the ER, maybe find out what hospital she is out of and go to that ER but hope you don't have to!

I completely understand what you are going through. I had an abscess drained three times in the last two weeks by three different ER doctors. Such a humiliating experience. The city I live in has a medical school so everywhere you go there are tons of residents. I actually find that the doctors speak to the residents and completely ignore me.
In addition to the humiliation and pain I also got constant contradictory information from everyone I saw. I now have an appointment with a colorectal surgeon so I hope to get some real answers and some kind of plan of care.
Hang in there! I am very lucky to have a supportive husband, so I know that men like that exist out there. I definitely am not interested in being intimate with open wounds on my bum and an overall depressed feeling. Crohn's care in Canada is terrible. I can't believe that the best they can do for us, is send us to the ER to be improperly drained and sent home. It sucks. Here's hoping that things get better for all of us!

I'm so thankful for all of you sharing your stories! Now I do not feel so alone. I too am suffering from a recurring abscess and infection in a fistula. I had my rectum removed and even after 3 surgeries and 2 years it would not heal and was infected. Not once did the doctor try Antibiotics before surgery. I was like, how is infected tissue gonna heal? Ive been through so much. It hurts so bad every day and I just want this over Had ANOTHER MRI today, see the surgeon tomorrow....again.

I can't believe my husband is ok with all this and how long it is taking. He probably hates it and is just too nice to say anything.

I hope we all get rid of these damn abscesses and fistulas! Like Crohn's isn't enough. It sucks and it's not fair. At least we have each other.

I am sorry to hear how long you have been dealing with this. I am so frustrated already and want it to be fixed and its only been since May 2012. My husband actually found this forum for me because i had so many questions and i was trying to explain to him how i just feel gross and miserable all the time. He said it might help to talk with people who are going through the same thing, He was right. It is comforting to know you are not alone in this. Where he has been great, very understanding, we are not able to have a full sexual relationship and i feel bad because of it. We have been married for 22 years so i guess he is just taking the good with the bad.

Good luck with the surgeon (BFoster) and i hope you find an ER doctor that knows what they are doing (Snoflayk505).

Dora1tod said:

I am sorry to hear how long you have been dealing with this. I am so frustrated already and want it to be fixed and its only been since May 2012. My husband actually found this forum for me because i had so many questions and i was trying to explain to him how i just feel gross and miserable all the time. He said it might help to talk with people who are going through the same thing, He was right. It is comforting to know you are not alone in this. Where he has been great, very understanding, we are not able to have a full sexual relationship and i feel bad because of it. We have been married for 22 years so i guess he is just taking the good with the bad.

Good luck with the surgeon (BFoster) and i hope you find an ER doctor that knows what they are doing (Snoflayk505).

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I'm glad ur husband found this sight for you. I feel the same way with my live in boyfriend. I feel bad because I can't have sex at the moment nor have I been able to on a regular basis for quite a while. Of course I try my best to please in other ways but it's always in the back of my head. Someone told me once that It's not my fault and it's not like I asked for this to happen so I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Same goes for you missy!! And you must TALK with your husband about your feelings and his. It's sooooo hard but i'm slowly learning that being open and talking is the best thing we can do to keep on top of things.

Tinals, hang in there and hugs to you. I can't believe they didn't tell you about the sitz baths right away. They could have saved you so much discomfort! (I find a nice sitz bath quite relieving).

I hope they figure out this situation soon. And my heart goes out to you for the situation with your boyfriend leaving. It's such a private area it can be quite humiliating to talk about. I was telling my mom today "there is nothing romantic about a anal fistula with a seton in it".

Hi all, I'm sorry to hear all of these stories then again glad there are others out there that understand. I'm a 48 year old male with crohns and heart condition. I was wondering what is the best sitz bath. I'm on blood thinners so I bleed a lot from my rectum. I'm always "cleaning up" down there and it's mostly blood and a puss like substance. I was told that the sitz bath was just warm water,but there has got to be something more to it than that and I'd like to try it.
any help would be great,
thanks

Rickgren
Maybe A Garlic sitz bath would help? I don't know if it would but I know garlic is amazing for infection and blood clotting.

I used epsom salt for sitz baths and it seemed to work really well.

To the OP: I totally feel for you and I know what you're dealing with. I dealt with an abscess for 3 years before I went to the hospital about it. Yep, that's not a typo. 3 years! I'm a 22 year old male and kept putting myself in denial saying that it wasn't bothering me (which it actually wasn't) and then in November '11 things took a HORRIBLE turn for the worst. I ended up being rushed to the hospital by ambulance and has emergency surgery for the abscess which was huge by that time. They put me under, cut me open and kept me in the hospital for 5 days. After they released me I had home care nurses to do the packing. Because of THEM, 3 weeks later to the day I was rushed back to the hospital after a nurse came for packing and said "I'm not touching that anymore" after seeing how it had been growing, and realizing she/they had been packing it with the wrong stuff causing the infection to spread.

This time, again I had emergency surgery and had to stay in the hospital for 5 days, then released to have different home care nurses use a different packing on me. Now however, I was left with a T shaped cut with the longest incision measuring at 7.5" long and about a knuckle deep. Its now July '12 and I am still open, healing, and even sometimes draining still. I don't have any pain and I haven't had it packed in months but its certainly still visible. It will be quite the nasty scar.

If that's not bad enough, I recently started biking a few months ago and now I have been feeling a small, hard bump on the other "cheek" that I'm hoping to god isn't another abscess. Like someone said, I would much have abdominal pain than deal with abscesses again. Its my only symptom right now, and of course its the worst!

I am new to this whole Abcess thing as well. I got my first abcess almost a month ago. I thought that I had bruised my tail bone Paddling (Outrigger Canoe). Come to find out it was an Abcess that subsequently burst as I walked into the emergency room. They lanced (with maybe two minutes to let the anatesia set in :-/ Ouch!) Then packed it and sent me on my way without antibiotics. This past week I got a second one higher up on my bum. They decided not not operate but just give me antibiotics (for some reason they wont do both?). I now have a painful abcess, fever, chills as well as a new abcess on my freakin elbow!

I am so depressed and frustrated about this whole thing, because I might miss the last 5 races of my Paddling season, that I worked so hard for all year. I also start thinking the worst and start wondering if I have Crohn's or some other gnarly disease. None of the doctors seem to be able to give me a straight answer. I am only 26 and in the best shape of my life, but life doesn't ask your permission to do what it wants...

Matthew,

I'm sorry that you have been having these problems with abcesses - it can be very challenging to say the least.

Do you have any other symptoms - have they given you a reason/diagnosis for why this is happening?

The reason why I am asking is because if you do not have crohn's, you could have the fistula plug procedure done to close the fistulas. If not, look into having a seton stitch put into the fistula - its a tiny elastic band that they thread through the fistula to keep it draining and this avoids the painfull abcesses you are talking about. They will knock you out for both these procedures. Do not let them do anything to you again without adequate anesthesia.

If you are having fever and chills and pain, then you need to see a specialist and get this taken care of. What is the closest city to you (to find a good specialist).

I hope you do not miss your last 5 races - when do they take place? Perhaps you can get a seton stitch put in, in time for you to be able to participate pain free.

Hi Matthew,
Does your GI or CR surgeon know about the fever/chills? I have been told that when that happens you need to be seen immediately. I have been sent to ER twice when it happened alongside an abscess for urgent draining.

Hi Tinals! Totally know how you feel! After my first fistula in February (misdiagnosed as a bartholin so god knows what going on now) then my second shortly after, what once was a sacred place no longer is! I think at least 60% of NHS staff have had a look, at least it felt like that.

I now have all kind of stuff going on thats going to take blimmin ages to fix, and I keep getting people asking me why I dont have a boyfriend/trying to set me up with people! im like "gah if you only knew (and im never telling you)"!

We must be brave though, it can't go on forever! Sorry to hear you've had such a rough time of it all. x

Anytime you get fever/chills and you believe it is related to your abscess you need to see the doctor so the infection does not go septic. I don't think that anyone in the world can understand how bad an abscess can be near you anus until you have one yourself.

My advice from experience with my abscess has:

1. Find a good colorectal surgeon.
2. Find a good Gastro M.D.
3. Take a lot of hot baths
4. See if any of the TNF drugs work Humira etc...(I take it once a week)
5. Pray a lot.

I agree totally with barkbbdog2!
1. Find a good colorectal surgeon.
2. Find a good Gastro M.D.
3. Take a lot of hot baths
4. See if any of the TNF drugs work Humira etc...

If you keep having abscesses then there is ongoing infection/inflammation that needs to be addressed. Some people had good results taking Cypro or Flagyl and a biologic combination.

chc, I think you will find much more help if you copy and pasted your whole comment into your own thread. I find that sometimes people don't visit posts with a higher number of comments because they might think the person has already received help.

chc said:

This is my first post. I'm the mother of an 18 year old who was just diagnosed with Crohn's. Her first symptom was an abscess with a fistula. Of course, we didn't know what it was at first. It ruptured on its own, but the abscess was packed by a PA in the surgeons office. After 4 weeks, she continued to feel terrible and began to have a fever and chills. I took her to the ER, and she was admitted to the hospital and put on intravenous antibiotics for 6 days. In the hospital they packed the wound daily. She's been home for 4 days, and I pack the wound daily. She's taking two different oral antibiotics. The doctor and the wound care nurse discouraged sitz baths. In this thread, it seems that you all use sitz baths. Has anyone been told not to use a sitz?

The doctors said they cannot begin to treat the Crohn's until the abscess is healed. How can I be sure I'm packing it right?

Also, how can I help her deal with the depression and anger of the diagnosis?

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I agree with KWalker... you should start your own thread to get more attention.
I'm thinking maybe sitz baths will be better after the packing is done... The epsom salts with it will also help promote healing from my understanding.
b
Being 18 with abscessing and fistula would be tough, mine started in my mid 20's. I've had my share of depression/ ups and downs emotionally. It's ok to go through an angry phase, and have a pitty party, it's normal I say but she can't stay angry forever. Being angry will make it worse and not help with healing from my experiences. If she or yourself ever want to message me just to vent or whatever feel free. Hope she heals up quick!!

chc said:

This is my first post. I'm the mother of an 18 year old who was just diagnosed with Crohn's. Her first symptom was an abscess with a fistula. Of course, we didn't know what it was at first. It ruptured on its own, but the abscess was packed by a PA in the surgeons office. After 4 weeks, she continued to feel terrible and began to have a fever and chills. I took her to the ER, and she was admitted to the hospital and put on intravenous antibiotics for 6 days. In the hospital they packed the wound daily. She's been home for 4 days, and I pack the wound daily. She's taking two different oral antibiotics. The doctor and the wound care nurse discouraged sitz baths. In this thread, it seems that you all use sitz baths. Has anyone been told not to use a sitz?

The doctors said they cannot begin to treat the Crohn's until the abscess is healed. How can I be sure I'm packing it right?

Also, how can I help her deal with the depression and anger of the diagnosis?

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I have requested your comment get moved so you can find some more answers and have your own thread, but in the mean time I can relate and know what your daughter is going through. I am only 22 myself and have been dealing with abscesses for the last few years now. Back in November and again in December of 2011 I had two surgeries and spent 10 days in the hospital because I left an abscess untreated and ended up paying for it with a 7.5" incision because I had an abnormally large abscess that needed immediate attention.

I'm going to take an educated guess that the two oral antibiotics your daughter is on are Cipro and Flagyl. I have a bit of experience and know they helped me quite a bit..while I was on them. For me unfortunately, once my prescription was done the problems came right back..possibly because I was only on a 2 week period of them so they might not have had time to fully become effective.

Do you know which kind of packing you/the nurses have been using for her abscess? It's important to be really cautious with packing because I ended up in the hospital again because of the nurses that did my packing and they used a packing that required extra measures and they failed to do so and it caused my infection to spread and become much worse.

As far as the sitz baths, I too was told to avoid the baths at the beginning. To be honest I'm not too sure why but after the first week or two of recovering at home I was encouraged to take them. I think it could possibly be because the wound is so fresh that basically you (your daughter) would be laying in all that infection. That would be my guess.

After I was released from the hospital I was encouraged to take epsom salt baths (sitz baths) to help relieve pressure, ease pain, and promote healing. A sitz bath is actually a thing that goes in the toilet and you only sit on it so your butt goes in the little thing so soaks that way but for me and many others we take actual baths with epsom salt and I personally find it really relaxes me and helps with pain.

HIe All, Just reading all your experiences brought back memories of my perianal fistula which was my first hospital stay in my early yet undiagnosed days as a Crohn's patient in 1997. I was told to sit in sitz baths... and what I did was I bought a tub big enough for my butt to sit in and I filled it with warm water and salt. And I sat in it for about 10-15 minutes after each time I went to the toilet, so basically I spent a lot of time in there. I read many novels to get me through. No one told me when to stop, but I kept at it for 5 months, just afraid that if I stopped things would go bad... but it healed well. I had packing post surgery but not at home past the first couple of days. I am pretty sure I was put on antibiotics, most likely cipro and flagyll too. They are nasty, but they help. The other day I thought I felt a hardish lump on my left side, but after a few days it went away. I am monitoring ... just to make sure it stays away My first one happened after I sat for long periods of time breastfeeding my baby... and recently my butt got kinda tired from sitting a lot due to my writing many hours a day and I then felt that lump... I wonder if pressure can cause it? But then again... who knows when or why these things happen, really?

I am moved by so many of your stories all the way through this thread. I understand your suffering. Here's a big virtual hug, and I do hope you get better soon. I have had to learn to love myself anew... Love yourself, and don't let the disease define who you are.

Can someone please help??? My partner does not have Crohn's as far as we know but I came across this thread on google whilst trying to find some answers! My partner is 32 and for the last year I've been with her she gets constant abscess around her vagina they get very hard and swollen and unbelievably painful!! She feels too embarrassed to go to the docs. Does anyone know what these are? She actually has one now and can nearly walk. She has also told me that she's been having these 3 years before she met me. The strangest thing is they are never in the same place and will be above, left and right of the vagina. I would really appreciate your feedback. Thank you x

Get her to A and E! I let one get so bad I could barely walk, it really isnt that bad going to the doctor. They are nice about it! It could just be a bartholin cyst but it could be fistulas. Make sure she gets a colorectal opinion as well as a gyny one. Pelvic MRI's show fistulas so make sure they arrange one!
The longer you leave them the worse they get and the harder they are to fix. I wish I had been a bit more outspoken about mine so it didnt get to the stage it is now.