what's happening to our borad TMI

Medical TMI: for years I had what I thought was a lipoma on my back, next to my right shoulder blade. It grew over time (about 2 to 2.5 inches in diameter) and started to look kind of gross and got a little annoying, but nothing about it fit the description of cancer and I just never dealt with it.

Last week I went to a dermatologist about something else and he noticed it looked really red. He told me it's not a lipoma, it's a cyst, and it looked "angry." He said I'd better call a plastic surgeon and have it removed soon. It got way worse over the week to the point that I couldn't sit back or lie on my back, slightest touch was painful, even my clothes brushing against it. Doctor put me on antibiotics and I made an apt with a plastic surgeon.

I get to the surgeon and I find out they do "consultations" first and can't do surgery on the first appointment. Then I'm waiting 45 minutes and I finally say to the receptionist "Listen, I am in a lot of pain and I need this thing out of my back. I want something done about this today."

The doctor agrees to pop and drain the cyst. It's so big and inflamed that he can't really give me enough lidocane to numb the skin, so I basically feel him cutting a large hole in my back and then squeezing an extremely raw and inflamed cyst really hard, one of the most painful things I've ever felt in my life. Terrible smell, fluid dripping down my back, etc. In a weird way there was something good about the intensity of the experience, not that I "enjoyed" the pain, but there's just something about knowing that you can tolerate and survive pain.

Back is covered in gauze now and pressure behind my shoulder is dissipating, which is nice. Have to go back and get the "sac" removed in a few months.

Had the exact same thing many years ago. Except I went to the emergency room after it exploded! They cut it out immediately.

Sort of wish I just went to the ER so they could just cut the damn thing out.

Glad the pressure is gone at least.

my sympathies, having a cyst drained w/added squeezing action is traumatizing

man alive iirc youre a fellow sw0le bro

this is completely unscientific but do you by any chance consume protein shakes or any other bcaa?

i got two of those things on my back (same spot as you + on my lower back) a long time ago when i was bulking

the doctor wasnt able to tell me what caused them but i think it was related to protein shakes/BCAAs i was taking

anyway, mine were removed and it just smelled like bad cheese, oozy and shit. one left a huge scar which is fine (looks like i regular knife cut), the other one just looks like i was shot (a round scar)

anyway the pain sucks ass sorry to hear that

i pulled a groin doing squats 2.5 months ago. my balls are in almost no pain now so just doing stretches and body weight squats

think i might try to get back to lifting this weekend

there's just something about knowing that you can tolerate and survive pain.

for real!

glad yr ok

um, since i'm coming off a groin pull from two weeks ago: when did you get back to jogging? I need some exercise like a mother.

well i really never jogged once i started lifting for real, so i still don't jog now

but it depends on the severity of your pain is what a medical professional told me. i literally could not walk. i thought i had a hernia tbh

the intense pain went away in about two weeks of me not doing anything but sitting and lying down

for the next month i couldn't really spread my legs (i drive every day) or lift my legs/feet

in 1.5 months i started walking normally but was basically traumatized by it so i was scared to do any movement that would make it come back because i would sometimes feel it coming and i would literally stop what i was doing and rub my inner thighs or press on my right inner thigh really hard because that seemed to prevent/relieve it

that lasted for another month. i felt good but i was told not to even think about getting back to lifting otherwise it will never fully heal

so now i'm doing stretches like really light/easy yoga stretches plus some regular "lifting" movements without weights

the pain was so unbearable i couldn't even work my upper body

the weirdest part of all of this is i started getting shocks of pain in various parts of my body. i guess as my body was losing muscle it was having a hard time adjusting. my upper arms (biceps and triceps) felt it the most. it was really weird. those went away quick though

good luck to you

Oh man, how did your wife not pop that thing? :(

Yes, I watch those Dr. pimple popper videos for fun.

You didn't get any pictures did you??

I KNEW YOU'D SHOW UP!

^^^^

Of course I was going to. I don't like the gastrointestinal ILTMI posts that seem to be so popular but obvs I'm still here for the pimples and weird sex stuff.

So, I have constant ear problems and had a cleaning about a month ago where they vacuumed out my ear. They're not very fun though tho I'm used to having it done by now and so two weird gobs of gelatinous grey goo were suctioned out and I really really wanted to take a picture but the guy was mean and I didn't want to prolong our interaction.

xp, it was way too big and inflamed to have it popped by an amateur, they had to cut like a 3/4-inch hole to let it drain.

xxp I do consume a decent amount of whey protein products now. The thing developed and got fairly large before I became a swolebro though.

I'm actually looking forward to lifting again in a few days now that it's gone, I think it's going to really help my form and mobility, everything from shoulder tightness during squats to ability to do pull-ups to comfort during bench press. I had problems with that shoulder even before I had the cyst for what it's worth, just always tight. Feels a lot easier to stretch it now though.

BTW, the doctor told me to take the bandage off myself today, but when I looked there's basically a giant piece of gauze wadded/stuffed *into* the wound, and when I tugged it a little it really hurt (presumably dried/crusted to the wound with blood). I don't really want to rip gauze out of an open wound. Any suggestions on how to handle?

BUt you had it for years! Surely it was smaller at one point.

I'm glad you were able to get it taken care of and feel better.

xp to infinity: thanks for the fuller picture. i'm more of a cardio/yoga nerd and i popped my groin in my first month of trying to learn how to climb. sounds like yours was much more intense than mine; i was able to walk home but instantly couldn't jog and have woken up to intense pain rolling over. after two weeks, i think i'm ready to go back to light jogging this weekend and am hoping to get to yoga in early december, then with any luck back on the climbing wall in january.

i'm also doing that "pressing on it to alleviate pain" thing. this fucking thing pulls on your nuts and makes you nauseous! good on you for fighting through it; the one thing i've learned from a dozen injuries that have taken me off of whatever exercise plan i've been on is that the human body is surprisingly resilient. i bet you'll be lifting in 2018.

man alive

did you get antibacterial gel or antibiotics? (sorry i don't remember what the gel is called, but the dr gave me a bunch of it)

i would leave the gauze there til the wound is not so fresh or til the gauze can be removed easier? make sure it does not get/looks infected though. i think this was the main concern with my having to re-bandage my wounds

but i got stitches for mine. i couldn't shower for two days and re-bandaged every 6 hrs i believe

i got big breathable bandages from cvs but they also sell gauzes if you need any extra. sleeping was a pain because i sleep on my back

thank you ulysses

hope you have a speedy recovery as well

I still shudder thinking about having a perianal abscess drained

if you can't guess what that is, do not, I repeat, do not google it

having a doctor nonchalantly explain he's going to have to stab you with a scalpel moments before he does it is bad enough

BUt you had it for years! Surely it was smaller at one point.

I'm glad you were able to get it taken care of and feel better.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Tuesday, November 28, 2017 12:40 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes but I thought it was a lipoma all those years, it was misdiagnosed.

did you get antibacterial gel or antibiotics? (sorry i don't remember what the gel is called, but the dr gave me a bunch of it)

Before I got it drained I was put on both antibiotics and given gel. After I got it drained the guy said to not use the gel anymore but stay on the antibiotics.

This last spring I had a cyst on the back of my head / neck that got infected. As the infection developed I had to go to Portugal for business and I didn't know how bad it would get that week away, but yeesh: it was like 3-4 inches in diameter during my Lisbon stay. After taking hot showers it would drain with an awful stink but at least I had the idea that it might go away on its own if it drained. I shoulda gone to the ER in Lisbon but I really didn't want to deal with it since I don't really speak Portuguese. I alternated ibuprofen and paracetamol, though when I got back to Paris my doctor told me that ibuprofen inflames such infections and probably made the whole thing worse! I shoulda just flown home early. When I got home I'm delirious with fever and haven't slept for a week and I go to the doctor on the way to work and he tells me to go to the ER right away instead. they lance the bugger shortly thereafter, while I'm laying on my chest, and wow does the blood and pus pour onto my face; I'm laying face down in it, a huge pool of it. They injected stuff to reduce pain but it was still pretty intense but I was delirious so it didn't really register. anyway they check me into the hospital because it seems like a big infection and keep me overnight. The next day they do a full surgery on it, general anesthesia, install a network of plastic drains, and identify that it's a staph infection. To keep it clean they do complicated things to the back of my head 3 times a day, I couldn't see what they're doing but I could feel it, 45 minutes per change, including hard massages of my wound area to push more and more pus out. (I came to love those, because though they hurt pretty badly while happening, things felt better afterward). For all of this I was in the hospital for 16 days! I'm sure that in the USA, as in man alive's story, I'd have been out by like the next day; but here apparently hospital stays are notoriously long (I had a private room so it wasn't as bad as it could be, I had ok wifi, also the whole stay cost me exactly nothing, thanks to socialism). I took a lot of painkillers, hated tramadol but was better with acupan (very bitter taste but not an opiate, and it worked, unlike tramadol, and didn't make me feel that weird). I was on antibiotics too and the infection was gone after about a week but they kept me 16 days to make sure all the pus was drained.

After they let me out, I had to go a nurse 3 times a day to get it cleaned, but these changes were much simpler than the almost-an-hour marathons of discomfort in the hospital. But a month after I got out, I had a trip to Japan scheduled, and my doctors said I could go if I kept getting changings there. So I got to learn about the Japanese medical system. It was pretty expensive at first! like 80 euros per consultation. The first visit, in a suburb between Tokyo and Yokohama, the doctors are basically barfing while looking at my wound---and this is like 2 months after the whole thing started! But through my connections (I was there with a university) I ended up with a much more competent, and even, English-speaking doctor (who'd trained at St@nf0rd while I was there apparently) who didn't charge as much, and who was able to direct my wife how to do the changes, along with using some weird mango-like goo on the wound. By that point it wasn't leaking much anymore.

Now things are back to normal. I think I aggravated the whole thing by picking at the cyst area while it was inflamed and somehow got staph into it, so I'm trying to better about leaving weird skin things alone.

Well there's my new motivation to stop scratching at myself, thanks

https://i.imgur.com/pj9fu.gif

(sounds awful euler, glad you're all better now)

wow, fuck, Euler

jeez euler, that's fucked! glad you're back on the mend! sorry yer dealing with yer own ugliness MA. this is a dark thread.

body horror

They put a piece of gauze in my wound as well so that it would drain. There's a word for this thingbut I can't remember. Anyway I replaced it everyday and stuck a clean one back in (actually my friends' wife did this), it hurt like hell. Stinging and burning.

OMG that story is horrifying, Euler. I am glad you're OK.

I thinking the gauze in the wound thing can be called wicking?

Also, aw that polar bear is too much.

It's called packing a wound! damn that was bugging me for 15 minutes.

I had to pack my wound everyday after I was left cut open after a burst appendix. Not the most pleasant experience.

man alive

i'm sure you've thought of this but no harm in phoning your dr's office just to get some clarification though (honestly that's what i would do, even though more than half of the time they give me a half assed answer)

god that euler story, yeeeeeeeeeesh

I am so happy that I avoided seeing a picture of my sister's boyfriend's foot over thanksgiving. He wasn't there, and had recently been to the doctor. dude is a bartender and apparently diabetic, which I hadn't realized, and his foot was infected in full "I'm ignoring bad symptoms" mode all while he was standing on it for work all the time

assuming it was full-on grossout

So I softened the gauze with saline and yanked it out myself -- hurt a little. A nice, clean hole in my back, pretty wild, looks like I was shot as someone said above. Then I managed to bandage the wound in the mirror with my arm contorted behind my back. The whole thing made me feel like Anton Chigurh.

whoa

I got a tiny (like 1cm across) cyst removed, not infected, surgery under general anaesthetic, had stitches put in

still felt p. weird for like 2 weeks afterwards

you people who had massive ones, infected, no anaesthetic - you are hardcore

mine was behind the top of my nose bones, so they wanted to take it out early bcz if it got infected/burst it could have forced its way through into the brain cavity apparently, which did not sound like a good option. they sliced right down the middle of my nose, pulled the bones apart, took it out and put my nose back together with a tiny titanium pin. they did a p. neat job, I have a faint scar and a weird bump on my nose but not too obtrusive (I think)

afterwards my face swelled up in a big purple band around my eyes, grotesque but weirdly bringing some kind of almost glamorous alien pixie cheekbone definition to my fat square Frankenstein/hamster/yeti face

the worst part of nose surgery is that the blood drains down your throat, so I woke up with a lot of dried blood caked in my anaesthetic-tube-scratched throat which felt/tasted p. nasty

but I got a big bag of codeine to take home and time off work to lie in bed (on my back only) and woozily listen to spaced-out records

That is the most metal thing I have ever heard.

Just a lil bump so let's be cool, she says

Just a little update, yesterday I inadequately bandaged the wound and then bled through my work shirt. My boss saw it and pointed it out, so I went to a CVS to buy a bigger bandage and then I went to GAP and bought a $15 sweater and an undershirt, went into their changing room, dressed my wound and put them on. I enjoyed the whole "I just got shot and am hiding from someone" vibe of it.

Awes :D

lol @ anton chigurh

UNGUENT

lol

badass

fwiw I'm pretty sure I walked into the mens room just as a dude was rubbing one out in the stall thinking no one was in the building anymore -- it was like 8pm and very few people in my building stay late. I heard a sudden, hurried shuffle and overly loud, almost projected tp wiping sounds, and then a guy came out of the stall looking a little flustered. Mostly lol because I have been that guy. I almost said "Bet you thought you were the last one here" but then thought better of it.

My hole is still draining. I managed to squeeze some stuff out of it yesterday and it was very satisfying but also it's in a really hard to reach spot and I can't get it all. Feel bad asking H to do it because it's quite smelly.

My hole is still draining.

I thought I was on the "out of context" thread at first.

Is it still infected then? The stink suggests, maybe?

I should add that I *also* had a pilonidal cyst get infected while I was in college. This happened a few times when I would just let it pop after a few days (despite the agony while sitting during the infection)—-what a mess! The “best” time was during a Richard Thompson show at the Variety Playhouse in ATL—-I hope they had a good seat cleaner! One time I got it lanced by my doctor, who was pregnant and gagged the whole time, lemme tell you I felt great about doing that to her (oh, the smell though)(and the pain, obviously). After a few rounds of these (including one that was at its worst during a particularly hard college exam, yielding my worst college grade bc I couldn’t think for the pain but was too proud to say anything) , I got the cyst itself removed, also a general anesthesia operation. I got to have my ass packed thrice a day, by university nurses, by nurses at the financial firm at which I was an intern, and by my home health care nurse, a Desert Storm vet who seemed relieved to work on the likes of me over his military compatriots.