I can't help but wonder if anyone else has these problems or if it's just me.
Over the years I have had many cysts. First just small ones along the bikin line. Then in the middle of my thigh and one on each ear canal. NBG, right? They found one in my liver and on my kidney. Now it's 3 in the liver. One of my wisdom teeth was even ensconced in a cyst!
Then the fun really began. I got out of the shower and while drying off saw a huge lump on the side of my breast. I had always had fibrocystic breasts and it was so large and appeared so suddenly that I knew it was a cyst. The Doc drained 20mls from it. The 2nd cyst was 60mls. Next was the Ovarian cyst. That one was 2500mls or 2 1/2 liters! I looked ready for labor and delivery by time I got to the OR.
After that I went to a ball game on a hot humid evening. When I got home, I had 2 red, hot swollen marks. One on my waist where my jeans must have caught the sweat and the second under my left breast. I took a shower to wash off the sweat and by the next day, my waist cleared up. I guess with the warm weather, my bras kept catching sweat and so the one under my breast developed into a large abscess that looked like a huge pimple. All the Docs were afraid to pop it because I was immuno suppressed. I wanted to pop it myself but worried that it might be a "breastula", like a fistula of the breast. I know that's not a real thing, but I really was concerned that it was part of a large cyst in my breast. Eventaully a Derm PA lanced the whitehead and pressed on it. The thing exploded pus and blood all over the poor guy.
A couple of years later, I got another one on my backside. At first I was worried that it might be a fistula, but it looked just like the first one, so I cut it open and it drained and went away.
In Sept, I was emptying my Mom's house. She passed away in January and I had to be out by Oct 1st. I purposely put it off until Sept so we'd have cooler weather. NOT. The whole month was warm and humid. That combined with my hot flashes from menopause left me a huge sweatball all month. When Mom had open heart sugery last fall, I stopped my Humira because I was afraid I'd get an infection and bring it to her. After she died, I was very depressed and wasn't exactly taking care of myself. I got my Humira in Sept and a few days before I restarted it, I had a sore spot on the left side of my pubic bone. I thought maybe I was getting a pimple, but it only lasted a day. The pain went away and I restarted the Humira without any concern.
By the next week I had another huge abscess on my pubic bone where I had previously felt the pain. It was 2 1/2 inches across and went into the crease of my leg. It did not have a typical head like a pimple, but there was a very soft center. I saw 3 Docs and begged them to lance it. They all refused, put me on antibiotics and told me to let it drain on it's own. All the antibiotics did was give me thrush, a vaginal yeast infection and even yeast in my underarm. The abscess remained. Eventaully it had a small head and I popped it. The swelling went down and it shrunk to the size of a quarter. Then it began to drain in about 5 places. I knew it would not go away and got to a Derm. He told me that I was right. It would not go away on it's own. There were several cysts involved and it was called a carbuncle. He lanced it and finally all the swelling went down and I had no pain - for a week. Then it was back. My Derm was not going to be in for a week, so I saw another one. He took one look and said that since lancing it didn't work, I needed to see a Plastic Surg to cut out the cysts from under the skin. This ended up with me having a chunk of skin cut out just a little bigger than a quarter. They pulled all the tissue together and stitched it up into a straight line. I've got over a dozen stitches holding it all together. I am certain that if someone had lanced the abscess when it first appeared it would not have developed into a carbuncle.
As if all of that has not been enough, an MRI of my hip turned up a 1cm mass adjacent to my femoral head. I just had an US to get a better look and will find out Monday what they want to do about it. We're pretty sure it's a cyst and it's not attached to the bone, it's in the muscle. I don't care if they wanna stick a needle in to drain it, but I'm worried that it might be infectious, which would mean they'd have to cut the thing out. OUCHIE!
I know that creating cysts can be a function of the immune system. IF something is unusual, my body just seems to wall it off into a cyst. I just can't help but wonder if this only happens to me. Does anyone else have these kinds of problems?