Hello everyone,

I'm a 23 yo female from Hawaii and I've been dealing with this for quite some time now. Let me start from the beginning. A few years ago I had some pain in my left butt cheek which shortly after turned into an abscess. It was (what I thought at the time) the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. I couldn't sit properly or walk properly, it really brought me down. It got to the point where I had to go to the ER because I had a fever and chills. Fast forward a little bit, I got the abscess drained and was told that it was the size of a tennis ball. It was disgusting. Shortly after that was taken cared of I got pregnant and after giving birth the same type of pain appeared again and the abscess came to a head and popped on its own and basically drained on its own. I thought that was the end of it. But every couple months the abscess would open and drain again. My worst fear was confirmed, I had a fistula. So about 5 days ago I had the fistulotomy surgery and they removed a good portion of the channel but there was a little in the muscle so they put a seton in. I stopped taking the pain medication they prescribed because it made my sleepy and I have a one year old so I can't be falling asleep on the job lol. But I have a bunch of stitches and the seton is literally right next to my, for lack of better word, butt hole. My husband has been such a trooper in helping me keep my wounds and area clean, but he can't take off of work so I was just wondering how do any of you keep your area clean when you're on your own? I have a mirror and what not but it's still difficult to be able to see what I'm doing and trying to clean it and dress it every single time I use the bathroom, not to mention my hyper 1 year old making things a little more challenging! I don't have too much pain, I put Vaseline on my stitches to keep the gauze from sticking to it, but I just hope I'm doing things right. When I was discharged they didn't tell me how to dress my wounds and they didn't give me anything either! But yeah that's my story so far.. hope anyone has some advice and answers for me as far as keeping it clean and dressing it? Also how long it takes to heal?
Mahalo (thank you) everyone!

I'm sorry, but I can't really help with how to dress your wound. As for keeping clean, have you tried a portable bidet? It's like a squeeze bottle with an angled tip. I bought one on Amazon for about $12. It works wonders for gently cleaningup after a BM.

I would contact your surgeon's office tomorrow and ask them if you should have received post-op instructions on your wound and seton care.