perianal crohnies, please help!

On monday, husband discovered a new growth, hense all of my questions this week, but now he described it to me and it's not an anal tag like his others.... it's something else, but what.

It's about an inch up from his hole, swelling from underneath the skin, about the size of a hershey kiss, and is very painful.

I suspect an abcess, but I don't know, and husband is not the kind of guy who runs to the doctor unless I give him a good reason to.

I will be calling his doc's office later today, but I was hoping to get your opinions on it as well.

Many thanks!!!

If the centre of the "hershey's kiss" is firm and painful like the perimeter, it is likely an abcess. If the perimeter is firm and the centre has give to it, it's likely a fistula.

If it's an abcess, those perianal ones rarely burst on their own, and even if they do, they recur because some of the pus is still left inside. It has to be lanced, scraped, and if big enough, packed.

I'm sorry- the abcesses and fistulae are definitely the worst, most painful part of this dd (at least for me)

Get him seen ASAP. if not he will start to have fly like symptoms and it can even turn septic.

Thats what I had (abcess on my rectal area) and I had surgery, have big scar from it, skin tags left over, an overall funny looking bottomside ;) but no 'issues' in last 12 years since surgery other than fissures which may or may not be linked to the scarring in the area. I guess they did what Tara said above while I was in surgery (lanced, packed etc) but I don't remember details of what they told me at the time, it was awhile ago and I was pretty young and sick. I just remember having to do the packing myself for weeks after I was released from hospital (I wasn't admitted only for the abcess, I had internal bleeding and other CD issues ongoing that caused my admission) which is not easy to do considering the area the surgery was in... but the abcess was SO painful!!! I sat on a bus for 12 hours to get to my dr at the time and sat on a ice pack in order to numb the pain. Mine did break on it's own when I was in ICU actually but the dr still had to do surgery and had to remove a large circle of skin from my bottom to get it all I guess. Glad to hear you have been in touch with the dr.... that is exactly what you need to do. Best of luck to your hubbie.

B