Has anyone else had a fistula?

:shock:

OH MY GOD - I feel so sorry for you. Ive had the op once and it was bad enough - would not wish it on my worst enemy. I think they have made a mistake with me because I was packed when I had the op but when it was removed (I did it myself in the bath in the hospital on the advice of the nurse because Id heard the horror stories about how bad it was) they didnt repack me - said wound was in an arkward place. Dont really understand that because surely everyone has them in the same area. Anyway now I still have a sinus and Im being referred back to the hospital. My wound gives off pus every day - not painful now but just nasty. So I suppose Im in the same boat as you except you have had a worse time than me it seems. Good luck with your next op - let me know if you get any results................then you can get down to the serious and more exciting business of starting your family!!

Hi had my op on tuesday had a different surgeon this time who was really good and he listened to what i was telling him about this lump further up from the wound that caused pain and when i pressed it it made pus discharge from my anus. When i woke from the anisthetic i was in so much pain they had to roll me on my side and i was rigged up to a machine so i could control my own pain. The surgeon told me he had found 2 fistulas!! which was obviously causing this pain all along.

I now have a drain in and something called a seton suture which drains everything out of the area and doc says it will stay in for one to two months. Then i think i may have another op to start healing these fistulas.

I feel very very sore and have remained in bed since the op, they discharged me the next day. Still having the wound packed every day and all doctors and nurses have told me that this is essential because the wound has to heal from the inside out or your wound will heal over but with a gap behind which will fill up with pus etc and get reinfected.

I just feel so relieved that they have found the problem and now can look forward to recovering fully. I felt like i was on a road to nowhere before.

I go for an mri scan soon because they think all my troubles may be down to crohn's disease.

MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR PACKING DONE EVERY DAY!!

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE I'LL KEEP YOU POSTED :wink:

My god you have been through the wars.

I know you are board but stick with it, you do not want to put any stress on the wound you do not have to and make sure they pack it every day. Take your painkillers about half an hour before they are due, that can help a bit.

A friend of mine had it in exactly the same way as you have and it did eventually heal so there is lots of hope!!!!!

You can have these things anywhere that has hair and sometime places with no hair, mine was under and above my clitoris! 5 years now (Just realised thought it was only 4.5)

I understand how you feel as I am on my fith surgery, last time it was a plastic surgical reconstruction and the flamin thing came back again! Now on full laser hair removal from that site so fingers crossed!

I wish you the very best of luck

Well its been nearly three weeks since my 4th op and i must say i am feeling really positive. I am up and about not in any pain and it doesn't really hurt that bad when the nurses do the dressings anymore.

I did get some pain and a little hard lump felt like it was swelling so i told the district nurse, she gently put a probe in the wound in the direction of the lump and found a small channel around 2cm she said they would need to pack this as she thought it was perhaps healing over and getting pus trapped in or she thought some sorbsan ribbon was getting stuck in there.

Today they have changed my dressing to something with silver in it as it has better healing qualities. I think it it really important to see the same nurses as they get to know your wound. My district nurses are absoultly brill.

It seems to me that the operation to drain the abcess isn't the problem its trying to get the damn wound to heal up afterwards. Ive been off from work for over 3 months now but think i'm well enough to go back soon.

My tests for crohn's disease came back negative which is very good news so I have no idea how I ended up with an abcess as I am not hairy at all.

My nurse said that people who are on thier feet all day are prone to it i.e hairdressers, waitresses etc.

I also had a fissure which is like a small paper cut on your anus hole and hurts every time you have a poo. My G.P said he thought that there was a chance that bacteria was getting in where it shouldn't because of this small cut which wouldn't heal causing the abcess.

I have another op booked in december to remove my drain( seton suture) I'll keep you posted whether you like it or not as I am bored!!!

Hello,I am waiting to go into hospital for surgery for a fistula. My history is this-I had an abscess in April 2006 on my bum which i had to have surgery to drain,this healed over and i thought i was fine until a year later(June 2007) out of the blue it flared up again and i was back in for incision and drainage. Since then I have developed a fistula and last week saw a consultant and had an ultrasound scan which revealed a pocket of pus and fistula. I am waiting to go in for 'surgical investigations' in the next fortnight ,depending on what is found i may need a seton thingy or be cut! I am petrified, I am in my 50's , female,very active, feel wonderful apart from this.I am researching on the internet as no-one i know has heard of this,I hadn't till i got it!I am so scared that this is just the beginning of my troubles. It is good to hear of other people in the same situation.

Hello fellow sufferers its me again since i last posted i have been back to work limping around the restaurant. I think i have another flare up i have a great big lump on my bum it is ever so sore and is making the skin split it looks like a bruise lots of shades, black, yellow, red and angry the docs put me on metronidozale antibiotics and i went to a and e to get checked over but they dont want to operate until i have had my mri scan.

So i just have to put up and shut up till then i have been on the waiting list since september. I wish they had just scanned me in the first place instead of leaving me in pain. 11 days to go!!!!! op booked on the 14th december.

I dont think i can carry on working and i feel awful to keep letting them down but they have been so understanding.

I wonder when this will end, they are worried about making me incontinent as the problems are so high up in my anal glands.

Any sucess stories out there?

post you after my op keep your chins up

Hi, I feel for you because I have been going through this for the last 4 months now. Never before had anything, been healthy.  Started in September 2015, felt a lump in my right butt cheek whenever I sat on a hard surface, slowly got worse and just unbearable. Went to A&E and was admitted, had antibiotics IV and surgery to open the anal abscess, large and deep. 3 months of daily dressings and packing of large wound with AquacelAG and gauze, sometimes twice if it oozed through. Then developed a 2nd hole next to the first.  I had not been for a followup with the surgical team so contacted his secretary and the PART team of the hospital and was seen that same week.  I find you have to push for appointments and not sit back and wait. I again went for surgery,  had a seton inserted,  only one!  thank God!  The surgeon said it was only one long fistula. I am due for surgery again after 2 months.  The seton has been uncomfortable most of the time so far (its been 1 month) but have to bear with it. The wound is closing, but the seton is still there. still oozing yellowy muck,  some days more than others.  My partner does the dressings, which is fantastic. I shower daily with the dressing on while I lather and wash hair,  but at the end the dressing is removed and I place the shower head near the wound to rinse it off,  then a new dressing is applied, when I am out of the shower.  This has been my routine for the last 4 months. I have been mostly at home, not working which has been very depressing on a personal and financial level! Confidence has been low, but I go out every other day just to get out. I have a busy active life.... not now.  I have changed my diet,  avoid anything sugary, excess carbs, no fast foods. I eat more vegetables, boil and saute them. grilled fish ( salmon) meat or chicken. breakfast porridge with seeds and nuts.  I take multi vitamin supplements and Vitc C, Tumeric, cod liver oil capsules daily.  Don't know if it will work,  but eating a diet that reduces inflammation.  Don't know if it will work,  but will try anything at the moment to help. I enjoy the good days and just do the best I can on the bad days.... Its been a horrible experience! I don't know how long this will go on for....   February is next operation to remove the seton and replace it with a stitch thread...  I think...   How long will this go on??

I want you to know that I am in tears right now. The almost identical thing happened to me. Around July 2013 I noticed a "mark" not even a bump on the backside of my private area. I thought nothing of it and in two weeks it was a bump and almost overnight I woke up with a knot the size of a baseball protruding from my butt. ASAP I went to the first doctor I could find and he told me it was an abscess. So matter of factly he told me all he would have to do is excise it and I should be back to work in two weeks....HA!! With all the packing and soaking, try a month. Once I returned to work almost a week I knew something was wrong because I was so sore. Not only did it return but it brought it's little brother. I went back and they excised the now two abscesses again a month after the first one. This time I was sure it was all over. The doctor made an odd comment after the surgery though he said that if I had another recurrence then he would have to attach a colostomy bag to me so I could let area heal with no fecal matter to infect the area. THAT SCARED ME TO DEATH! So as you can guess it returned. By this time I'm thinking this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me and I could see no end in site. So I got a second opinion and this doctor told me he wouldn't have to cut a whole in my abdomen and attach a poop bag. He showed me this diagram and it blew my mind. He told me that what was happening was that at some point a hair follicle got a little dead skin cell/sweat combo stuck in it and instead it clearing itself by normal means (a bump that comes to a head pops drains and heals) it instead chose to burrow further into the skin carrying more and more infection with it as it went. So to shorten this.....tunnels or tracks had formed under my skin in that area and all the excises was doing was clearing the protrusion. There was still a LOT of pus and infection lying in wait under my skin to take the place of what had been removed. I was an extra special case because the tracks under my skin had started to connect to each other, thus the second abscess. His plan was to tie of those two major tracks with what is called a ceton or C-tie. It would allow the entire area to drain through the tie and it would slowly push itself through the openings until it "tied" off the infection. Once that was done he would remove it. We did the procedure and when I came to it was the oddest feeling in the world. There was two sections of twine sticking out from my buttock and for the first week it took everything in me to resist the urge to dig it out. I continued with the hot sitz baths for about a month and a half and the tie was sticking out from what started at flush to skin to about two inches on each side. I went back to the doctor overjoyed that this would finally all be over. To my dismay he told me that it could stay in up to SIX months. So I was thankful that he had gotten me to that point but I was not going to have string literally hanging from my ass for half a year. I went to yet another doctor and he said he could remove it. The part that was left out or I failed to hear was that when he removed it, to ensure no reinfection he would have to remove all the skin from subcantaneous (white meat) to surface that was in the u shape of the tie. He did tell me on surgery day that it may look gruesome at first but it should all heal back. When I awoke from this surgery and removed the bandages two days later......I cried in the tub for about ten minutes. It looked like someone had taken an ice scooper and had taken three helpings of my butt cheek for themselves. I know I've kept you with all my in depth descriptions of everything but I'm a TMI (too much information) kinda guy. But the whole YEAR of my life that I went through with that debacle, had to be at the least to help someone else out one day. So to be cautionary, don't be so stubborn and quick to take the ceton out once you go through your surgery. If I knew then what I know now....the longer you leave it in, the more tie that comes to the surface aka the less skin they have to remove. I am now left with an area on my left buttock a stones through from my rectum that is unevenly healed and still looks kinda bad. (to me anyway) I have had no further problems in that area since to my relief and happiness. I pray to God that he guide the surgeons hands during your procedure and that your recovery will be swift. I will also pray for patience for you to allow the ENTIRE healing process to complete. It varies for everyone but should be from 1-6 months. If we never communicate again I feel a bond to you that will last forever and I don't even know your name. (like it matters) Stay strong and good luck!

Oh yeah BTW make sure they do an MRI of your pelvic region and get tested for Crohn's disease. I was and the results showed negative but I had recurring colitis that started two years before the first "abcesses excision". I have a new GI doctor now and he says with all that going on it can be nothing but Crohn's. He went on to say everything doesn't show up in a blood draw.....Again GOOD LUCK!

Hi i am Lois yes I have it was not pleasant let me tell you? The string is wonderful I have had it in for coming up for 2 years  I am 26 years old? My sturgeon mr parnaby said until every thing calms down because I am still not healed up yet? I know how you feel I was off for a year with this let me tell u my story first I noticed that I could not hardly walk don't my lump got so big it was impossible to walk. First I went to the docs and get antibiotics with in 2 days my lump burst the smell! After burst felt great but still pus still coming out then doc put me on another course of antibiotics did not clear it up then go attempted to hospital 1st operation in my life got it drained. 2nd was to drain my wound again 3rd was inflammation 4MRI scan 5 endoscopy 6 another MRI scan and then diagnosed with Crohn's colitis and now get  Infliximab through my veins and things are getting so much better since on this drug and don't get me wrong there are still flare up but not as bad? If wanting more question don't hesitate to write back to me thanks for listening and reading my experience love Lois xx

OMG, how painful, embarrassing, inconvenient and plain horrible.    I do feel for you, I am booked in for surgery on March 14th for a pilondial cyst.   Reading all the horror stories on here, I sometime wonder if it is going to improve.