Cancer is one of the most feared diseases in the world, for good reason. Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States (after heart disease) and can strike anyone at any age.
However, fear of cancer may prevent you from getting the diagnosis and care you need to cure it, or the diagnosis and care of another condition entirely. When you first experience pain or bleeding in your anus or rectum, you may choose not to consult a doctor because you’re afraid you might have cancer. Or, you may just be embarrassed by the location of your pain.
Either way — due to fear or shame — it doesn’t pay to “wait and see” when your body sends you clear signals that something’s wrong. Anal pain and bleeding have many causes besides cancer, including a hemorrhoid or abscess.
When you consult the colorectal experts at Colon and Rectal Surgeons of Greater Hartford, we diagnose the cause of your pain so you can stop worrying. Depending on our findings, we then customize a treatment plan at our offices in Bloomfield, South Windsor, and Plainville, Connecticut.
If you have an abscess — whether it’s your first or not — we recommend immediate treatment to minimize the risk for complications. What happens if you don’t treat an abscess? Let’s see.
If you take a wait-and-see approach with an abscess, it may clear up on its own. Temporarily. But it’s likely to recur and cause further complications.
A much easier and less painful course of action is for a doctor to drain the abscess. An abscess is a pocket of pus that’s enclosed within your skin in or inside a gland. In fact, 90% of anorectal abscesses occur due to a blocked gland that gets infected.
An anorectal abscess may be located just around the anus, where it’s visible. In such cases, if the abscess is small, we drain the pus in the office with local anesthesia and give you after-care instructions. However, if the abscess is large, we may need to perform minor surgery to drain it in the hospital under general anesthesia.
An abscess is a contained infection. When one develops in the anorectal area, it may be infected from the bacteria in your feces.
Without treatment, the abscess could burst on its own, especially if it’s in an area that’s subjected to the friction of stool passing through your rectum and anus. If infected material circulates through your bloodstream, it may infect other areas of your body, too.
About half of all abscess patients develop a complication called a fistula. A fistula is a tunnel from the infected gland out to your skin. Approximately 75% of anal fistulas start with an abscessed anorectal gland.
Your body creates a fistula in an attempt to drain the pus from an abscess. However, the fistula itself may be extremely painful, swollen, and itchy. It may also leak pus, blood, and even feces.
The fluids that drain from the fistula may ultimately block the opening in the skin. This increases the risk for recurrent abscesses.
If you’ve previously had an abscess drained but it’s now recurred, you may have a fistula that went undetected. Be sure to consult a colorectal expert for your abscess so that it’s treated appropriately the first time.
Anal and rectal pain, swelling, or bleeding aren’t normal and shouldn’t be tolerated or ignored. Find out what’s causing your discomfort so you can get treatment as soon as possible and minimize the risk of complications. Signs that you have an abscess include:
Don’t delay a diagnosis and treatment of anal or rectal pain. Find out if you have an anorectal abscess, fistula, or another condition and get the treatment you need by calling our office nearest you (Bloomfield, South Windsor, or Plainville, Connecticut) today or by contacting us online.
