Wanna see my abscess? (TMI, obvi)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Of course you do, you gross monsters. I took pictures just for you.

This past Friday, I noticed a hard, painful, red bump on the bottom of my shoulder blade. It sits right under the band of my bra. I though it was a bug bite. I’m allergic to everything that bites and stings, so a bump like this wasn’t cause for alarm. I’d never had an abscess before, so it didn’t cross my mind that this bump could be one.

Over the weekend, it became bigger, redder, and more painful. Before I went to the doctor on Monday, it measured 1 inch tall and 2 inches wide. There was no head on it. The doctor said it looked like an abscess, prescribed bactrim and moist heat, and told me it would probably go away on its own. Ha ha, NO.

Last night, it started forming a head. It looked like a giant pimple. This morning, it was even redder, more painful, and had multiple small heads on it. The doctor had told me to come see him again if it got worse, so I did.

While I was at his office, the abscess started oozing a bit. When he looked at it, though, he said it was still too hard to drain. He said when I touched it, it should feel more like pressing on my lip than on my forehead. He though it would be ready by Friday, so I’ll be going in again Friday morning.

In the meantime, it’s still oozing, and it’s still incredibly painful. The doctor prescribed Tylenol 3, but it’s not doing a damn thing for the pain. It is helping me sleep, though.

If the abscess does anything interesting-looking tomorrow, I’ll take another picture. Otherwise, I’ll give y’all an update on Friday if you want it.

Questions? Comments? Horror stories?

2

If it were mine, I’d probably be stabbing at it with a clean needle.

3

Get your SO to pop that sucker!

4

Why can’t I get one of these cool expressables?

5

Needle hell. I’d be going after it with a knife if necessary.

6

Give it a name first, then you can go all Jack Nicholson’s Joker on it"

The Joker: I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman! pop - splorch

7

I’d love to stick a needle (or knife) in it, but I can’t really reach it. I was very disappointed when the doctor said I had to wait.

8

Save yourself a copay, wait til Friday am if you can, and sterilize a needle and either lance it yourself or get a friend/so to do it.

My husband gets these semi-regularly from a form of staph bacteria, and after paying for repeated visits to get told “keep it warm, keep it moist, wait til the pain is blinding white-hot then come in again and let us stick you with a needle and charge you shit tons of money for it” we figured out we could replicate those steps at home and then go out for a nice dinner instead.

Random notes:

The lancing does not hurt in comparison to the existing pain of the abcess.

There is a shocking amount of puss, and it is not always uniform in viscosity or color.

If you can get a hollow needle from a med-supply store, you can refill the abcess with warm saline and drain it again a few times to get as much of the bacteria-laden puss out of there as possible.

It may be necessary to lance it again a day or two later if the underlying infection doesn’t clear up.

When you lance it, you will feel immediately better.

You will probably end up with a tiny pinprick scar/divot from where you poked yourself. It may be discolored.

None of this is medical advice. You should always have medical things done by a qualified medical person in a sterile environment.

:smiley:

9

I can’t see the pictures. I haz a sad. :frowning:

10

Ooooh, have someone film the lancing. When animals get flat abscesses like that, sometimes the pressure builds up so much that there’s a pus geyser when you cut into them. It’s always amusing when the geyser hits someone,* especially when it’s a direct hit to the face, and most especially when that someone is the vet. I’ve never seen that happen in any of the human lancing videos I’ve watched, but I always kind of hope, ya know?

I’m sure that thing hurts like a bitch, but on the bright side, at least it’s on your shoulder. I got one right in the personals a few years ago. Having an abscess sucks. Having an abscess you have to sit on is a special kind of hell.
*By which I mean someone who is not me. No matter how much you try to hose yourself in the sink, you can’t fully wash the smell out of your shirt. Even when nobody else can smell it on you, you can still smell it on yourself the whole rest of your shift.

11

How about now, WhyNot?

ETA: Pus geyser? Urk. One of the nurses said she loves gross stuff like this. Maybe she’ll film it or take pictures.

12

YAY! :smiley: (And, ow.)

13

I’m not looking at the pictures! Ewww!

Several years ago I had a ginormous boil on my ribcage, it was painful as all get-out for days and worse because it was under my bra strap. One morning in a hot shower I finally poked it into eruption and the pain relief was incredible, almost orgasmic. Crud poured out of it for a good sixty seconds until the whole thing deflated, was cleaned out and thank Og has never returned.

That was several years ago and as **Lasciel **said, I have a tiny divot scar under my right boob.

Does anyone know what prompts these things? I’ve never had one before or since but holy crap it was painful and disgusting.

14

My semi-feral cat is a champion at cleaning out abcesses - want me to send him over? He only brings me the ones he can’t reach himself.

15

It’s usually a small staph infection. I get them on the back of my head around where my hair meets my neck (though much smaller than the OP’s, which is a beaut.)

CrazyCatLady, there’s a story in pro wrestler Mick Foley’s book about a staph infection suffered by The Undertaker, which turned into a fist-sized lump on his elbow. When it was lanced, the pus sprayed all over a wall 10 feet away.

16

I am both grossed out and intrigued by the pus-spraying possibilities here.

17

Whatever amount you’re thinking, it’s probably going to be more than that - the pressure has to be intense in there. I was totally unprepared for the amount of goo that shot out of my husband, and I was expecting there to be a good bit.

Sadly, no projectile puss over here yet.

18

This may or may not work, but I’ve heard that if you take a recently used (still warm) teabag and apply it to the spot, it might help the start the draining process.
Yes, if might be hard to hold/keep a teabag on a spot that is hard to reach, but its got to be safer than digging post-holes through your flesh in a place where you can’t really see what you are doing.

19

The abscess opened up a bit more last night. I woke up to find that the gauze, the upper back of my shirt, and a big spot on the sheets were soaked with a mostly blood/partly pus mixture. Here’s a picture of the abscess after I cleaned myself up (warning: you’ll see a little pus oozing).

It’s still oozing mostly blood. The darker red part is still hard as a rock, but if I press on it a little, more blood/pus comes out. I hope it softens up so I can have it drained tomorrow. It feels less painful today, but now I’m running a low-grade fever of 99.5F.

20

The worst part about the abscess I had was that it was just below and to the left of my tailbone, so I really couldn’t see it and could barely reach it. It ruptured on its own, but I had to go in to the doctor to have it properly cleaned out.

BTW, lidocaine doesn’t work well on abscesses because the acidity of the wound environment neutralizes the lidocaine. Also, to heal an abscess properly, you have to stuff this gauze impregnated with an irritating substance into the wound. It keeps the surface of the abscess from creating a capsule and becoming a permanent little cave in your skin. The problem is, it frakking hurts, and you have to pull the old gauze out and replace it at least once a day.

My doctor was very nice and gave me a prescription for hydrocodone. My problem was that I was due to fly from Dallas to Seattle to visit my older brother and meet my parents. Only time in my life I’ve ever taken three hydrocodone was on that plane, and I still wasn’t comfortable. Woman next to me kept hinting she wanted my window seat, and I was ruder to her than just about anybody else in my life.