Hi all
I just wanted to update everyone on what has been going on with me. If you remember last week I wrote about gas pain and what could help it. I also said that I was throwing up and had a very low grade fever. Well I ended up going to the ER on Wednesday and they found that I had an abscess. I was in the hospital for 7 days while they drained it and had me on IV antibiotics. I was sent home with a JP drain and IV antibiolitic which are both a pain in the butt. I should be done with both of them by Auguust 8th (keeping my fingers crossed)

What I want everyone to know is that I had pain from about a week after I came home from the hospital with step one. It was a soreness and sharp pains that would never go away. I could not stand up straight and I got very short of breath when I would walk. I was not getting better like everyone said I should be. Everytime I called the Dr. office to complain about this pain the nurse would tell me it was normal. I would call and talk to the Dr. on call at night hoping to get a different answer and they all told me it was normal. My home health care nurse told me it was normal. EVERYONE told me it was normal pain. In the end I am very lucky that it did not break open and go all over the rest of my body. I was putting heat on it every night..which really could have caused some problems. I just want everyone to know that some pains are not normal and if you are having constant pain like this don't let anyone tell you it is normal. Get to the ER ASAP. The sooner the better!

So glad they caught this in time! Advocating for yourself can really be a pain in the %$# sometimes. I would've thought that someone would have paid more attention, particularly because of the classic abcess sign of the low-grade fever! Hope you get the JP pulled soon...it's very annoying, I know.

The same thing happened to my husband after his first surgery. His pain was very bad and they said the same thing-it's normal. He finally ran a fever of 101.5 and I called and said he's only 1 week post op and something is wrong. He can tolerate pain, this was different. He went to the hospital and was there about 5 days. He had the drain and antibiotics. He finally felt better knowing that something was causing the pain and they could fix it. I'm glad you got it figured out. It is very frustrating.

Just a side note. The highest my fever ever got was 99.7 which for me is a fever! I always run about 97. I know I have read on here to have a low grade fever it would have to be above 100. Just know what your normal is and go by that.

Plus, when you are taking Vicodin, Darvocet, etc. for the pain, you are also keeping your fever reduced; making it easier to become complacent about the fever symptom.

Abscesses are not easy to diagnose and if you look for them too early, they will not be organized enough to be detectable. I had a daily low grade fever of around 100 in the evenings and this constant pain. Hard to describe when you just had j-pouch surgery and everything hurts. You don't know what to compare with. Pain is so subjective.

However, when my fever shot up to 105 and I had branding iron pain at my tailbone, they did pay attention and I wound up spending the next 12 days in the hospital and came home with a drain for a month. So, even being a nurse, it snuck up on me.

Jan

Yeah, and my abcess lurked behind my pouch, avoiding detection on CT scans and scopes and causing only a slight fever but one helluva lot of misery. Got the little sod in the end though! An ultrasound technician spotted it and raised the alarm. I could have kissed him.
No-one believed me that my incision was infected, either. Until it burst all over the hospital bed....