What will happen if I dont have an abscess drained?
All abscesses eventually drain- it’s just the manner they do it in is sometimes not so good. The body will sometimes form what’s called a fistula, which is a tube that connects the walled off abscess to the outside surface so it can drain. To encourage yours to form the head and drain itself, try applying moist heat, hot as you can stand it, as often as you can do it. Sometimes in stubborn cases it can take up to a week to do it. If yours has outlasted that, then it’s time for an incision and drainage. You really don’t want to just let it go. It can also lead to a sytemic infection, body wide- and that will land you in the hospital, in the ICU sometimes. Needless to say, that makes for a really large bill. If you like for now, you can try to stick it out with the antibiotics and heat- which do work in the majority of cases. But if not, return to the ER if you have to.
