Cysts

Yeah this sounds pretty awful E, I hope she recovers well!

I have had sebaceous cysts before: theyre nothing like this of course, but they are a massive pain. Mine was in a completely unreachable spot on my back, and continuously slowly leaked a foul-smelling goo for months. It was so embarrasing. No matter how much I tried to drain it it just kept on going, then it started to harden and bleed... so I was booked in for surgery to have it removed.

2 days before that, it spontaneously completely drained (ew, that was gross) and disappeared. o_0

yeah it puts my sebaceous cyst 'operation' into perspective. Hope she's ok, E!

I had a sebaceous cyst. For years it just sat on my back, about the size of a kidney bean, doing nothing in particular. When I asked a doctor about it, he told me that it was harmless, but that one day it might become infected.

He was right! One day it became infected, and swelled to the size of a 7-inch single (so about 7 inches) and rose to a little white peak. It was disgusting, but basically painless. I saw the doctor again - I was told, I think, to come back at some other point and they'd drain it.

In the meantime I had to go to a wedding; it was a bank holiday Saturday, and the trains were very crowded. I was trapped in the rubber bit that joins carriages when the cyst sort of exploded. It leaked a lot of pink-white gunge into my white shirt. It just wouldn't stop. I went to the train toilet – it was a largeish one, of the kind they have in Virgin Trains – and tried to clean it up. I found that by flexing my shoulder I could squirt pus from it, a good way across to the other side of the cubicle. I was in there for ages with my white-pink-yellow soaked shirt off. A lady with a baby wanted to use it and I was embarrassed to pop my head out to explain what was going on while topless.

The train journey – Oxford to York – continued. I'd run in and out of the loo, and staunch and clean. When I arrived I got tcp and a dressing. The wedding was fun, and I was inconvenienced no more. On my return, I had it drained and dressed by a nurse, and I remember little more of the great cyst of '01.

This is the vilest thing that my body has ever done to me; it would have sickened me beforehand had you told me what would happen, but it didn't hurt, did no lasting damage and while happening just gave me a kind of wtf combo of weirdness, logistical fretting and fascination.

ENBB, sorry for your gruesome experience, and I hope that all goes well for you and your mother.

I didn't realise how long that had got. Clearly am still hypnotised by my cyst experience.

Like, is it mostly a skin-confined thing or has it grown into internal stuff like muscle and bone?

― C-L, Thursday, May 20, 2010 11:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yah this is what i'm wonderin too

:-/ hope she's doin ok

That's a good question. I am heading over there soon and I will ask the doctor this after she gets out of surgery. My guess is that it goes deeper but we'll see what he says.

puts whiteheads on yr chin into perspective. hope everything ends up ok for yr mum.

that video above has made me feel lightheaded

So they decided not to operate today. Finally met the doctor and got the scoop. It's infected very very badly and all the way down to the bone/prosthesis so much so that they don't think cleaning it out will do anything. They are going to have to remove the whole thing. After that procedure they will immobilize her shoulder and attack the infection aggressively with antibiotics. Again. Hopefully that will clear it. In the meantime they've prescribed oral Bactrim and released her.

That sounds like an ordeal and a half.

Oh rats and double rats, that sounds like a whole lot of worry and drama and exhaustion you just got served, EN. I'm sorry to hear that you're on your own. Is yr mom conscious and making decisions about her own care? Fingers crossed for you.

On a lighter note, this this thread is SO TIMELY. I've had a sebaceous cyst on back of head for like 4 years and never done anything about it, never knew what it was. Well. It got infected last week. Am now on antibiotics for next 7 days but WAITING, WAITING I TELL YOU for it to rupture, I mean COME ON. Quite painful atm, and just started being kinda itchy, so I'm hoping this means the end is nigh....

Oh god, enbb. i'm sorry. My mom's got MRSA too right now, but nowhere near that bad. This just reminded me to call her. Good luck.

E, I hope your mom recovers quickly & without complication.

TWO ILXors' mothers have a flesh-eating infection right now? Is that...I mean what are the chances? gbx?

Hey all - thanks so much for the kind words.

Laurel, she is conscious and making her own decisions but she's the worst patient ever so it's tough to deal with. Also something really weird happened this morning that is worrying me. We were waiting for the nurse to come to the house and dress the wound when all of a sudden she became completely disoriented. I noticed that she was still in her robe and she told her the nurse would be here soon and she asked, "What nurse?". She then tried to light two cigarettes at once and couldn't find the right words when she was trying to talk and wasn't making any sense. This lasted maybe 10 mins and I was completely freaked out but all of a sudden it stopped as quickly as it started and she was fine again.

Not knowing what else to do I called my Dad in Germany and he said she's been having these episodes lately so that's definitely not good. :/

I'm sorry to turn this into a mememe thread but it's all pretty stressful and I'm dealing with this on my own so it helps to talk about it.

"talk"

enbb, there is no need to apologise, this sounds very stressful and frightening. i hope this is all figured out and resolved quickly.

oh man :( best wishes to your mom. estela is right, no need to hold back - if the mod of ILTMI is not allowed to give too much info, then I don't know who is.

ENBB, serious infections can cause delerium.

*hugs*

Thanks again u lovely ppl!

Christine that's very interesting and not something I realized.

my grandma had transient global amnesia once, sounds similar

EN: Was thinking bout you yesterday, was going to ask itt for an update. When does yr mom go back for the next step?

This is a hard thing to handle on yr own. It feels weird to say "well done for sticking by your parents" or w/e because, well, what ELSE were you going to do?, but otoh if you have to do it anyway, may the grace of ILX go with you.

She has a follow up appointment on Wednesday and I guess they'll discuss the next move then. She's also going to go into the city and get a 2nd opinion from an ID specialist for her peace of mind.

Best wishes for you and your mother, ENBB.

(thread makes me feel better about getting a cyst taken out a while back, don't much like the scar but reading this thread is making me all "ok, good job I got rid of that then". brr)

yikes, this sounds terrifying; all the best to you and your mom, ENBB

So thought I'd update for the medical folk and anyone else who had been following. She was operated on yesterday and they removed the entire prosthesis and packed the area with some antibiotic material. This will stay in for four weeks at which point they'll go back in and remove it. She will be on IV antibiotics for six weeks once released. At this point she's not sure that she even wants to try another prosthesis but that's a decision she can make later down the line.

Spoke to her earlier and she sounds OK. She's not hallucinating to the degree she did last time she was under anesthesia but she is a little disoriented. This morning she thought they'd put her in the basement and when I talked to her tonight she said that she had some real wild ppl staying next door. I asked what she meant and she whispered that there was an older couple smoking weed in the next room. My dad got on the phone and announced that he wanted some of whatever meds they were giving her. lol.

aw, sounds like she's doing the best she can under the circumstances. my best wishes

I hope things turn out for the best.

I hope your mom gets well quickly & without complication, E.

I have them... Ganglions in my hands, around the joints. Little benign bumps that feel horrible when I grasp, say, a glass. The doc says they can be injected with cortesone but the NHS is reluctant to do it as it costs money. Until recently they've caused nothing but mild discomfort but recently they've started hurting - a dull ache and it's stopping me able to type and play guitar and stuff. I take it I should go back to the doc, right?

Go back to the doctor. Is the cortisone a option that manages them rather than gets rid of them? Everything costs the NHS money, that's kind of the point, and if it's hurting it doesn't seem particularly trivial. So yeah, go back to the doctor, be insistent and explain how it's affecting your day-to-day life.

Yeah. I think he said the cortisone halts them, but doesn't get rid of them and is only mildly effective. I'm starting to get paranoid visions of being unabel to use my hands ever again, which I know is (hopefully) daft, but they do hurt.

augh it's on the back of my head under my hair and it feels like
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kpvvvseoQz1qzhmv5o1_500.jpg

I have a bean-sized cyst on my back that got infected last year. It took 3 weeks from infection to rupture, had antibiotics but the docs declined to drain it. I will never understand why. When it did rupture (when I flexed my shoulder like woof upthread), it shot a cupful of cottage-cheese stuff across the bathroom, then streamed pus and blood for several hours. Finally the original cyst-stuff came out, which was grey and waxy and looked like a giant maggot. It's left a small but very ugly puckered, black scar, and memories that refuse to fade.

Yes, I always struggle to remember why the doctor didn't just get a knife and a straw and drain the bastard. I'm sure he gave me a reason, but I can't remember it.

Squeamish imo

Every once in a while, maybe every couple months, I'll catch a whiff of this and then go check by rubbing my neck and smelling my fingers. Sure enough, it's back again. Not big or unsightly. Just slowly oozing infinitesimal amounts of oily pus, I guess.

I found that by flexing my shoulder I could squirt pus from it, a good way across to the other side of the cubicle.

^ back of autobiography quote imo

mines returned too :(no leakage this time but my bf is grossed out by it which isn't helping! gah.