Turning the string on your seton

[becki72]

Ive never posted a question before, so please bear with me. I am 37 years old and on July 6th went to a colo-rectal doctor recommended to me by a friend. I had a lump inside of my anus and alot of pain. I thought it may be a hemmrhoid. Well, the doctor told me that I had an abcess and what appeared to be a small fistula. She said that she was going to take care of it right then and there in the office to save me from surgery. She numbed my butt and proceeded to reopen the fistula tract. It hurt like hell, even though she had numbed it. She pressed a bit and said that she needed to do an ultrasound right away. They brought me into the next room and proformed the ultrasound. She said that I had a huge abcess that needed to be operated on right away. From there we went directly into surgery.

She didnt do a very good job of explaining things to me and I didnt do a very good job of understanding her. I was on pain meds when she was explaining. From what I understand, my white blood cell count was very high because the infection had been there awhile. They kept me overnight until it came back down. She had proformed an itersphinteric abcess removal, sphintorectomy, and exploratory surgery. I was given percocet, flagyl and cipro, and directions to take 3 to 4 sitz baths a day.

About 2 weeks after the surgery I started to have really bad swelling and pain in the area of the fistula. I called her and she said this was normal and as long as I dont get a fever just continue to take the percocet and i should be fine. (i had finished my antibiotics by this time).

I went through this for another week until the pain got so unbearable that I could not function. I called to make an appointment with her but she had gone out of town for 2 weeks. I was able to get an appointment with another surgeon in the same office for the next day though. As soon as he examined me he said okay, we need to go into surgery right away. Once again...straight to pre op.

He said that the fistula was filling up because it was unable to drain so he placed a seton (c-ton?) inside to allow drainage. He didnt say how long tis was to be there though. I had a 2 week follow up with my initial surgeon last week and she examined me. Although they were in the same office, she had no idea that the second surgery had been proformed. She then looked at my records and saw what the other surgeon had done. She examined me and said all looks good and instructed me to take a percocet, sit in a warm tub and turn the seton string twice a day.
I seemed to be feeling good, no pain, no need for pain killers, and was draining well until I started to do as she had instructed. I looked it up on the internet and can not find anything pertaining to turning the seton string. Since I have been doing this, there is less draining, bleeding, pain and swelling. Is it normal practice to turn these strings?

By the way, I have never been diagnosed with cd but I have never been tested for it either. I didnt know what other topic to post this in though.

Sorry about the length.

[ISmile]

yes Becki this is normal. turning the strings is great. I pull my strings thru several times a day. It helps drainage PATIENCE is a curse word to me when it comes down to CD. sitting on a heating pad also helps to lossen up the infection and allow you to push it out.

[Cobra38550]

I have one right now.  the colo-rectal surgeon put it in there to keep myfistula draining.  He told me to go to a Gastroenterologist.  The Gastro doc told me I hadCrohn's after blood test and colonoscopy.  He has me on Imuran (immune suppressant) to heal my peri-anal fistula.  he said a few months after I am on the meds it should help my insides so that when they do a repair it will heal right.  otherwise the fistula may not close b/c the tissue is still inflamed and I am right back where I started.  
  I am trying to remain patient in learning to deal with this disease.  Go get tested.  you need to deal with it before it gets more aggressive.