A skin abscess is a pocket of pus just under the surface of an inflamed section of skin. It’s usually triggered by a bacterial infection.
Abscess drainage is the treatment typically used to clear a skin abscess of pus and start the healing process. Smaller abscesses may not need to be drained to disappear.
Read on to learn more about this procedure, the recovery time, and the likelihood of recurrence.
Before a skin abscess drainage procedure, you may be started on a course of antibiotic therapy to help treat the infection and prevent associated infection from occurring elsewhere in the body.
The procedure is typically done on an outpatient basis. If you have a severe bacterial infection, you may need to be admitted to a hospital for additional treatment and observation.
Prior to making an incision, your doctor will clean and sterilize the affected area.
Usually, a local anesthetic is sufficient to keep you comfortable. It’s administered with a needle into the skin near the roof of the abscess where your doctor will make the incision for drainage. Examples of local anesthetics include lidocaine and bupivacaine.
The abscess drainage procedure itself is fairly simple:
Within a week, your doctor will remove the dressing and any inside packing to examine the wound during a follow-up appointment. If everything looks good, you may be shown how to care for the wound and change the dressing and inside packing going forward.
For the first few days after the procedure, you may want to apply a warm, dry compress (or heating pad set to “low”) over the wound three or four times per day. This can help speed up the healing process.
You may also be advised to gently clean the area with soap and warm water before putting on new dressing. However, you should check with your doctor or a nurse about home care.
Healing could take a week or two, depending on the size of the abscess. During this time, new skin will grow from the bottom of the abscess and from around the sides of the wound.
The most obvious symptom of an abscess is a painful, compressible area of skin that may look like a large pimple or even an open sore. The skin around the abscess may look red and feel tender and warm. You may also see pus draining from the site.
Other symptoms may include:
A doctor can usually diagnose a skin abscess by examining it. You should also be able to answer questions about your symptoms, such as:
To identify the type of infection you have, your doctor may send pus drained from the area to a lab for analysis.
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