Greetings fistula sufferers,

I just wanted to share my story since I feel like this is the only place I can be totally open, since most likely the people here are suffering from similar conditions/hard times.

So it all started in September 2015. It had started to hurt sitting down in a chair at work, but I really began to take notice one day when I hopped on my bike to take a nice late summer afternoon bike ride. I noticed while riding that my butt really started to hurt, especially sitting down on the bike seat. When I got home I felt down there and noticed a lump in the peri-anal region that really hurt when I pressed on it. It was roughly the size of a golf ball but at least half of it was 'submerged' in my left butt cheek next to my bum hole. The whole area was red and inflamed.

I decided to schedule an appointment with my long time family doctor (my first mistake). He took a quick look at it and said it was an infection. Then he proceeded to have the nurse inject nowhere near the area but smack dab in the middle of my butt cheek a local shot of antibiotic! I asked him if an abscess like this should be drained and he said no it should clear up in a couple weeks! He prescribed me amoxicillin.

A week later I was feeling even worse and beginning to feel sick, so after some googling I discovered that I had a perianal abscess that could lead to a fistula. I found online called my region’s most well known CRS offices right away to schedule an appointment. He took a look and didn't hesitate to lance the thing right there in the office. I felt pus and blood oozing out (GROSSS!!!!), but it felt so much better afterwards. Night and day. He told me there would be a 50% chance of it turning into a fistula afterwards, which scared me a bit. A couple weeks went by and although it felt better than when i had the abscess, it was still oozing pus and blood, and the area was still tender.

During my followup appointment with the CRS he said that it was indeed a fistula and would need to be treated with surgery. I had sort of already accepted the whole deal so it wasn't really a shock to me. 50% is really not very good odds for success so I'm glad I prepared for the worst mentally beforehand. On November 5th I went in to get a 'fistulotomy' where they put me under with general anesthetic.

Following the surgery on the way home, my girlfriend told me that the doctor was not able to find the source of the fistula tract and he simply opened up the wound further for better drainage. She said most likely I would need to undergo a second surgery. I was pretty devastated but I realized that this was a long process.

Fast forward a few weeks, the wound healed back over with scar tissue but it was starting to hurt again.. The CRS scheduled me for a second EUA to attempt to locate the tract.

On January 19th I had the fistulotomy done (again) and this time it was supposedly successful. I was totally numb around that area for the rest of the day, they used a lot of local anesthetic for pain relief (thankfully). He removed a whole lot of infected tissue and I was left with good ½” deep valley and stitches on both sides to pull the tissue back so it can heal from the inside out. First BM the next morning was scary and I did have blood but it was not painful. I was taking Tramadol for pain which seemed to work well enough for my purposes.

Taking several sits baths, I noticed at first I could fit my index finger into the wound and it was quite large. It slowly filled in over the next few weeks. I was wearing gauze every day to keep the drainage from soiling my clothes.

Fast forward about 4 weeks to February 19th. The drainage slowed down but I noticed there was quite a bit more blood than there had been previously and it was burning after work, so I felt like something was getting infected. Indeed it was. I got into the CRS that afternoon (which was awesome). I was totally worried that the fistula had come back but the CRS assured me that it was a ‘delay in the healing process’ from new soft tissue hitting the hard scar tissue. Thats where an infection developed. He put silver nitrate on the wound and prescribed antibiotics.

I’m currently about half way through the course of the antibiotics, and the bleeding and pain has gone WAY down. Still a small amount of drainage (very faint blood and drainage from the most outward edge of the wound). Fingers are crossed that this is not the fistula recurring. I really just don’t know what I’ll do if I need to have this wound de-roofed again, I feel like my butt is so torn up already! The rest of the wound seems to have healed pretty nicely with almost no drainage. I wish I had called the CRS a few days earlier to have caught the infection when it first started, but I thought it was just normal.

I guess the scariest part is the edge looks like a fistula coming back but in the office he assured me I did not have a recurrence issue. I guess I’ll have to wait and see, time reveals all! I feel like if these antibiotics can fully clean up this infection then I’m home free, since the rest of the wound feels pretty good! It looks like it’s filled in at least halfway up with scar tissue from that portion all the way to my bum hole, so far so good.

Well that’s it so far, I’ll try to update every other day or so throughout the healing process to document this whole ordeal. It’s a great way to cope, so for those just reading I recommend trying it out.

Best wishes,
Nick

Hope things are going well for you, and that the fistula is healing.

Let us know how you're doing!!

Update: It's been a week and 3 days since I started the antibiotics. I'm quite convinced the infection is gone. The pain is also gone; i get a zing every once in awhile but probably just because it's healing. The area that was infected has filled in with scar tissue. There's a small bump (almost looks like a zit, gross i know) where the drainage was constantly dripping from; it's slowed down a lot though. It seems like on and off i'm still getting light drainage. I expect this will probably continue until the wound is fully healed/filled in with scar tissue, but for now its MUCH better than it was a week ago. Just trying to take things week by week, some days are worse than others for sure. But overall its getting better.

For anyone suffering from this whole ordeal, this healing process is 40% care, 60% mental stamina. By week 4 you start asking yourself questions like why isn't it healing faster and what's going on, why does it look that way? It's tough. You're bound to have some minor pain as well. Just hang in there and do something to take your mind off it, which is much easier said than done. I'm about to hit 6 weeks post surgery. Things are looking better than they did last week, but i'm still going to be skeptical until I don't see another drop of drainage for several days and don't feel any pain.

The part of the wound that takes the longest to heal is wherever the doctor laid open your sphincter, because that tissue seems to be the slowest growing. I wouldn't get alarmed if you see a tinge of blood on your TP every so often, but if you're getting what seems like a lot of blood, CALL THE DOCTOR and schedule an appointment, do not wait like I did. If it hurts to push on it then its highly likely you have a yeast or some other kind of infection. Antibiotics work wonders for these things, it just takes time.

Also I think that wearing gauze with cloth tape is starting to give me a sort of diaper rash down there. Six months since the original fistula started, and my butt is done with wearing gauze to catch the drainage. When the wound isn't draining i just don't wear anything at all, but just worry it will get infected again.

I've totally stopped drinking alcohol to give my immune system a boost and will continue taking multivitamin and pro-biotics as long as it takes. Anybody else at this stage in the healing process, or going through something similar? Just seems like things are taking forever.

Another unfortunate update:
My wound basically healed and the drainage stopped yesterday and I went to a concert and was feeling great. However when i returned home from the concert i noticed that the area just below the original wound site was swollen and inflamed! It feels like another perianal abscess!! I'm so down :/ I'm going to schedule an appointment with my doctor as soon as possible and figure it out. To me it seems like the wound healed over too quickly while there was still a small infection going on, and having just gone off antibiotics last week it probably added fuel to the fire for this infection to track lower. The original wound site feels pretty good i might add.

Will continue to update when I know more...