Hi Everyone,
Sorry I haven’t been on for so long – I don’t have the internet on at home at the moment!
Just an update on me and a couple of questions…
Since I last posted, I unfortunately spent a week in hospital – I have been struggling with a peri-anal abscess. It started more than six weeks ago, became inflamed, and intensely sore. I saw a GP about it one day after work and he prescribed antibiotics to bring down the inflammation because he said it was too inflamed to try and drain.
about five days later it was not AS sore, I went back to the dr and he gave me a repeat of the antibiotics.
Shortly after this round ended, the infection came back, and I was prescribed another round.
I eventually had my appointment with the gastro, and he prescribed me ANOTHER round of antibiotics, this time flaygl.
The flagyl made me so sick, I felt as if I was going to throw up and spent a whole day in bed, feeling nauseas and dizzy, before heading to the ER (by this stage I could barely walk from the pain!)
I was admitted and told I would have surgery, but after the surgeon took an initial look at the abscess he decided to treat it conventionally with antibiotics, for fear of making it worse with surgery. So I was admitted on an IV drip of antibiotics (both Ibilex and flagyl) – this continued for around 5 days (five days of feeling like I was on the verge of vomiting all the time and being unable to stand up or walk!), with the doctors checking up on me every day and continuing the IV antibiotics, waiting for the inflammation to come down. After 5 days they could see they ‘weren’t winning with the antibiotics’ so they scheduled a surgery to drain it. I went under general anaesthetic and they took a look, only to find that that very day it had drained it’s self, they found lots of fissures, and a fistula (which was behind the abscess which had eventually drained after over a month of painful hell!). I think it must have ‘burst’ the night before the surgery, because I woke up in such intense pain, and had to have morphine because nothing else would do.
I was discharged with rectogesic, a cream for fissures, and painkillers.
Now, only 2 weeks later, it’s hurting again – and I can tell it’s blocked.
Has anyone else had a similar experience with fistulas/abscesses? Do they constantly block up, get infected, drain and re-heal? I am not looking forward to a life of constant abscess infections. My gastro says surgery will only be used as a very last option, because it can lead to a spreading of inflammation and infection, and in hospital I was told it could even lead to incontinence!
The pain of the abscess becomes unbearable, it makes it near impossible to walk, and getting up from a chair or sitting down, and going to the toilet is so excruciatingly painful, not to mention the nausea when it spreads into my blood.
Since it started hurting again a few days ago I’ve started taking another round of antibiotics – and I see my specialist again on the 17th.
Would love to hear your experiences with infections of fistulas – any advice? I hope you’re all well!
P