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Showing posts from March, 2015

Surgery and Stitches and Bandages...Oh My!

Over the last few years I have been sick with recurring abscesses in my right breast.  They have been happening for no other reason, that any of my doctors can figure out anyway, than my immune system sucks something awful.  Normally they see a breast abscess in nursing mothers (and as I have discussed, I am not one) and heavy smokers (I am not one of those either).  What has left my doctors stumped has been the lovely fact that normal people can have bacteria find its way into their body and their immune system, with the help of an occasional antibiotic, can fight it off.  So, the regular course of treatment for a breast abscess is antibiotics, draining if necessary, and then the abscess is gone.  In my case, my body doesn't fight it off so my doctor had to keep going in and either aspirating the abscess with a needle (which would cause an autoimmune flare up) or drain the fluid through an incision (which would cause an enormous autoimmune flare up).  In both scenarios, I would b