A Pain in My Ass

If you haven’t noticed, my post frequency here has been slightly below my average the past couple months. Mainly this is because for the last couple months, it has been quite painful to sit in front of my computer and write. No, I’m not getting headaches from the monitor. Nor am I easing into the world of carpal tunnel syndrome. The source of my pain has been in a rather different region. Namely, my butt.

Back in late October, I started getting some serious painage down in the valley and I had no idea what was going on. I felt swelling, tenderness, and much much pain. From there I decided to see a doctor. I just went to a normal family practice place. The kind with about 50 doctors–all of whom could really care less about you and your problems. After explaining my symptoms to the doctor and a quick exam, he determined I had a hemorrhoid. So he prescribed me some very expensive cream and sent me on my merry way.

About a month later, in early December, I still was feeling the symptoms I originally felt. Only this time, they were accentuated to the extreme. One night, I just could not handle the pain any more. I literally hoped Cheri would kill me because I was in so much pain. But instead, she did the sensible thing and brought me to the emergency room.

At the emergency room, the doctor continued to give me the same song and dance about hemorrhoids that my original doctor gave me. Eat more fiber, don’t strain on the toilet, exercise. Blah blah blah. Who needs that crap? Anyway, after lecturing me, she actually decided to take a look and was pleasantly surprised. She proceeded to give me the good news that I, in fact, did not have a hemorrhoid. Instead, I had a perianal abscess. How lucky I was!

A perianal abscess is similar to a boil, yet the pus originates from an infected gland in the anus that drains into the fatty tissue in the butt. Thus it swells, hurts like hell, and sometimes leaks really smelly pus. And the only way to make it better is to open it up and let it drain.

Since my abscess was very bad, they put me on morphine and opened up my abscess in the ER. Even though I had morphine, I was in an excruciating about of pain. It was so bad that during the entire procedure I screamed at the top of my lungs. It was the worst pain I’d felt in my life.

Luckily the procedure was done in only about 5 or 10 minutes. Afterwords I was sent home and told to go visit a colon and rectal surgeon. Then I made an appointment with Dr. Doughtery here in Fairfax to get looked at. At the appointment she looked to see if the ER did an OK job draining the abscess, and then sat Cheri and I down to explain what a perianal abscess is and what would happen from here. She explained that in about 50% of cases, abscesses come back because a fistula has formed. A fistula is a canal that has formed from the original infected gland and is feeding bacteria to the abscess.

After the appointment, things got better fairly quickly. I would walk normally and almost sit without too much pain. But soon, things got worse again. I was just thinking it was part of the healing process, but I was wrong. I was forming more abscesses. Once again, I couldn’t take the pain anymore, so I went to Dr. Doughtery’s office to get looked at. It was found that I had formed two more abscesses. Yay!

That day they were drained, and it helped a lot. The draining at the surgeon’s office did not hurt as much as it did in the ER because I think they actually knew what they were doing. But then the doctor feared I might have Crohn’s disease. This is because multiple abscesses for someone as young as I am is a sign of the disease. So I was ordered to get an upper GI and small intestine examination done.

The next day I went to the radiologist and had the exam done. It was kind of a neat procedure. They made me drink a lot of Barium (which was disgusting). The Barium creates a contrast so that they can examine my intestines with x-rays and fluoroscopy.

A couple days ago I got the results back and found that it looks like I have Crohn’s Disease. It really isn’t as bad as it sounds. Its just an inflammatory bowel condition that may get flare-ups due to stress or dietary habits. But I won’t exactly find out what I need to do about it until I go see my gastroenterologist in a couple weeks. All I will have to do though is take some medication to help keep the disease at bay so I don’t experience any symptoms.

Luckily though, I’ve been getting better and am now able to sit at the computer again. Hopefully, I will continue to post more frequently here again.

UPDATE (6/13/2008): Thanks to everyone who’ve commented.  Please feel free to use the comments to continue discussion and support for those who suffer from perianal abscesses!