Phil B

As promised here is the full account of my recent experiences re. a rather nasty abscess and the aftermath, its quite a long story but i hope you find it makes good reading... I have not been able to add the pics - i have mailed them to Hackski and he will edit them into the thread for me.

Iv been training for over 12 years, competing for 4, I have used anabolics on and off for probably 7 years, i would describe myself as fairly knowledgeable and experienced & I have administered literally hundreds of injections - to myself & others with no problems atall until August this year...

8 days out from a show i did a 1ml shot of winni depot to my right pec, i aborted the shot as it blocked the needle - i didnt inject any steroid, i did the shot elsewhere - but my pec swelled to double its normal size & after 3 days the injection site although painless was swollen and now had a 6cm swollen lump under the skin, by show day it hadnt gone down & i pulled out of the show on the day as it was so obvious.

I visited A&E that afternoon -the doc diagnosed a "haemmatoma" - (also refered to as a "sterile abscess") - id caught a blood vessel doing the jab, it had bled into the muscle, the blood hadnt been able to escape so pooled causing the lump. I was given a course of antibiotics to safeguard against infection.

I got my head down & trained & dieted 2 more weeks competing in Leicester taking 2nd in my class but not qualifying for the British, id had a hell of a time carbing up wih terrible guts unable to tolerate carb loading - i think maybe this was due to the antibiotics.

I set my sights on Birmingham 3 weeks later and again returned to the strict diet & cardio, I had 3 weeks & restarted my prep course - test prop, tren ace, winni depot & winni oral for 2 weeks, show day was 28th Sept.
I had my last shot of winni depot on Friday 19th Sept - i was also due 1ml of test prop that day so i loaded the winni depot & test prop into the same barrel & injected my right glute nice & deep with a blue. Prior to injection i had washed my hands, cleaned my glute with surgical spirit and cotton wool and observed sterile handing procedures of all injection paraphanelia.

By Monday 22nd my glute was very sore, i thougth nothing of it, by Tuesday it was causing me to limp and my 2 hrs of cardio was very uncomfortable, by Weds 24th i was in real pain sitting, driving and lying on my right side - my glute had started to swell in size - my show was only 4 days away! I didnt use antibiotics or visit the doc - i was so focused on the show & i know anti biotics make me hold lots of water. The swelling remained and slowly increased all week - i spent many hours lying with ice packs on the muscle to reduce inflamation.

28th September i went to Birmingham on the back seat of my car lying as comfortably as possible and cursing the sports suspension! Once weighed in i found a quiet back room and didnt really move from the floor - i managed to get use of a fridge with an ice compartment and kept putting ice packs on my glute, i was downing nurofen & paracetamol every couple of hours and just about staying on top of the pain and swelling.

I stepped on stage in decent enough condition, but not carrying enough size i was a little watery (due to the infection i didnt know id got) but unable to really pose my hamstrings or hit my side shots properly - i could not push my left knee against my right hamstring as the swelling restricted my flexibility. I took 3rd in my class.

Woke Monday morning & swelling was still there & still very painful - i managed to drive to the NHS drop in centre & presented the nurse with my swollen bum cheek & told her what id done, she went to get a 2nd opinion as wasnt sure, her superior looked & said it was not an abscess cos it was too big! - They sent me off with a script for antibiotics & I was told to use Ibuprofen & Paracetamol every few hours.

Wednesday 1st Oct - still in a real mess, limping badly, painful walking, standing, sitting, bending etc went to GP for emergency appointment & 2nd opinion. She said i had a large haemmatoma caused by the injection, it was localised bleeding & bound to be painful due to its location - I queried that it might be an abscess but she said no - that would have a head on it & be boiling hot to touch. I went away uncertain but not knowing what else to do.

Thursday i was back in the gym for a back session - felt great after the recent carb up - took my mind off the discomfort for a bit.

Friday 3rd October - still no better - i got out the shower in the morning, my other half saw me and nearly dropped her cup of tea - i went and looked properly in a mirror - she was right - it was even bigger & now had a definite head on it. I rang the doctor i had seen, told her it was bigger, hotter & now had a head - she said - yeah thats OK its not infected dont worry you'll be OK - it will go down - i came off the phone feeling a bit lost.

Went away that weekend to watch the Leeds show, was in pain all weekend drove my training partner up as he was competing. I trained Saturday afternoon at a great gym in Leeds called Altered image - great hardcore gym - i did delts and tris and it took my mind off the pain until i tried doing seated shoulder press!! I hobbled round all weekend and collapsed into bed Sunday night worn out.

Monday 6th October - swelling was even more pronounced:
PHOTO 1 & PHOTO 2,
Late evening (after training chest & biceps!!) i went to A&E at midnight, i saw a doctor at 4am - she took 1 look and was like "bloody hell thats a huge abscess - you need admitting and need to see a surgeon right away", at 5.30am Tuesday 7th Oct i saw a surgeon - he told me that i had a massive abscess - badly infected, it would need to be removed - he was going to put me on the emergency list for surgery - at this point i realised things were going badly wrong!

I was put on nil by mouth, rang my girlfriend who brought me down a wash bag, a book and of course some protein drinks! (nil by mouth except protein!). They finally took me off for general anaesthetic at 8pm, i didnt know what to expect - was told they needed to make an incision to drain out the puss.

Wednesday 8th October - morning walkround by surgeon - he told me they had drained 900ml of puss from my ass cheek - yes you read that right - in perspective thats nearly 3 cans of coke, or the shaker bottles we mix our protein drinks in hold 700ml - thats a hell of a lot of puss!!
He said they had to cut a lot deeper than expected and the wound wound was very large - it would take 3 months to heal - my world seemed to be coming apart at this point.

To further put the frighteners on me they told me they were very worried about my hip joint - due to the depth of the abscess and the volume of it, the puss had been trying to find a way out, normally it would come to the surface and burst but with me it had been pushed against the bone of the hip joint - they were worried about bone infection and scepticemia (blood poisoning) - by now i was having visions of losing my whole bloody leg!!

Later that day they changed my dressing - an abscess is not stitched up post op like a normal wound as it will become re-infected - instead they leave the wound open & pack it with sterile packing, it effectively heals from the inside out. While the nurse was out the cubicle i took a sneaky photo of the wound -

PHOTO 3
As you can imagine seeing i had this was a bit of a stomach churner!
I was extremely lucky that each day my girl friend brought me down a cool bag full of good healthy food - chicken salad, natural yoghurt & peptide etc etc - this at least meant i could keep some level of normality with my eating habits and not feel like i was wasting way - which would have been the case on hospital food!

Thursday 9th October my dressing was changed and the wound re-packed - i took another photo - this ones really sick!
PHOTO 4

Following my dressing change on Friday 10th October with the tissue viability nurse present, the decision was made to keep me in for observation over the weekend - the wound was still infected with Staph. Aureus (common bacteria) - i was being pumped full of IV antibiotics till the weekend when i went over to orals.
A nurse measured the wound today at 13cm long, 4cm wide and 3cm deep!!!!

The dressing was being changed daily - despite loads of packing it was leaking exudate constantly and by the time of each dressing change it was all soggy and generally unpleasant - although i could walk round with a lot less pain than before the op!

Time dragged on - i amazed all the nursing staff that i could spend all day eating - one of them got so worried she demanded i be weighed every day expecting me to be piling on loads of weight so she was most puzzled my weight was coming down (water rebound post show had been huge and was finally subsiding LOL).

Tuesday morning 14th Oct the tissue viability nurse made the decision to fit me with a vacuum pump - this is a device used post surgery in certain cases - in effect the wound is packed with sterile absorbant foam & sealed with an air tight dressing out of which a thin tube feeds into a portable vacuum unit - this constantly drains the wound and removes the exudate (tissue run off) preventing it sitting round to become infected and promotes fresh blood flow to the area.

I took another photo of the wound, this was after she had cut away a couple of blood clots - nice!
PHOTO 5

Thursday 16th Oct - the tissue viability nurse changed the dressing on the vac pump - ouch - i was given the all clear to leave the hospital that afternoon. The wound now looked like this:
PHOTO 6

I am now at home - i have a portable vacuum unit to carry round with me - its about the size of a large CD walkman from the mid 90s - it chugs away in the background sucking the crap out of me!

I took a pic of the vac dressing this am - it makes my ass cheek look rather saggy, but you can clearly see the size of the wound.
PHOTO 7

Im hoping the scaring when it finally heals will be covered by my posing trunks. Im desperate to get back into the gym - iv been told to take another couple of weeks off - but i think some light arms and shoulder raises next week are on the cards!

Crazy as it sounds i carried on my rebound cycle while i was in the hospital - hair of the dog - it took some courage to jab a blue in my quad while sitting in a hospital bed having had an absces removed from a bad shot! But I wanted to taper off properly so i could begin PCT.

I have been running 4iu of Ansomone GH on waking each day even when in hospital - im sure this can do nothing but help the healing process.
The doctors cannot explain why the abscess developed - their only advice is dont use steroids - thanks but no thanks.

I will start a new course in a few months after a proper clean out, in the mean time i will run PCT and cycle IGF in 4 week bursts with a base of GH daily until my next course.

The reason i wanted to write this huge article was to make people aware that no matter how careful you are - and how clean you think your injection technique is - you are at risk. I would have never believed this could happen to me - i have preached to people about clean technique so many times - i always aspirate, clean the area & equipment etc etc.

The other crucial point i want you all to come away with after reading this is that if you have had a shot and it doesnt feel right many days later - and it hurts - then get help ASAP - and if youre not happy go back for 2nd, 3rd 4th opinions till you get taken seriously - some times we get fobbed off cos we bring these things upon ourselves in the eyes of the medical world (although its OK to smoke drink and be obese!!).

I knew my body well enough that even after 3 lots of medical professionals had told me it was OK - i still knew it wasnt - the surgeon did tell me that had it been dealt with 8 days earlier when i first went for medical help it would have been a lot lot smaller and easier to treat and not made anywhere near such a mess. Also rather frighteningly he told me left any longer i could have had serious bone/ joint infection (arthritis in later years, loss of function etc) and i was only days away from life threatening levels of blood poisoning!

Sobering thoughts! - Please be careful out there and remember to take this side of body building very seriously - its not a game!

hackskii

Oh man, one of them you can see the meat on the inside almost gagged me, I had to look away when I was editing the pics.

Attached Images

	8th oct post op.jpg (55.8 KB, 2684 views)
	9th oct.jpg (63.8 KB, 2652 views)
	14th Oct close up.jpg (59.2 KB, 2618 views)
	16thOct going home.jpg (58.9 KB, 2575 views)
	Abscess from above.jpg (65.7 KB, 2600 views)

__________________
Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

Scott

hackskii

A couple more

Attached Images

	Pre op abscess side.jpg (50.6 KB, 2531 views)
	Vac pump 2.jpg (57.1 KB, 2524 views)

__________________
Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

Scott

MissBC

OH MY GOD, sooooo cool but oh so yuck!!

thats ummmmmmmm very fleshy.........................

Uriel

horrible injury that.

Pushing bacteria into a muscle caused that?

were you overly run down because of contest prep?

Sylar

That is bad mate. Really bad!
Thanks for posting Phil. Hope you get well soon buddy.

This thread is sticky worthy.

thestudbeast

F**K me! How come every time you hear about this its winny.

mars1960

Jezuz, i wish i hadn't seen this thread now.
Glad your on the mend mate.

MASSIVEMONSTER

OMG!!!!
That is absolutely terrible. I have never seen anything like that in my life.

I had an abcess once almost the same place, slightly more central from a test prop shot. Within 3 days it was boiling hot and red and had a head to it. Even that was as big as a golf ball of pus after 3 days and got a 2 inch scar now. I was using 6iu GH at the time too and it healed totally in 2 weeks and the doctor was amazed, I said it was the high protein diet!
So I would keep the GH going mate.

You sound very dedicated and slightly crazy to be banging in gear in hospital though, worrying about a rebound course when half your **** is missing!!

marty.c

nasty wound bro, you did well to compete way that goin on,

Uriel

Bad luck comes into things though also... I had a colleague who had a big (not as big as this) abscess removed/drained etc on his lower back from an in-grown hair!

The wound had to be packed and allowed to heal from the bottom, drained off a good 1/2 cup of puss

A Hair!!

tedder

Jeez not good at all mate but i hope you are on the mend now. I must admit its put me of doing my next shot.

pod13

Sorry to hear about this Phil. Hope it heals well. I'm sure you'll end up with some fairly nasty scarring. Once your off vac therapy and the wound site has healed up, it'll be worth massaging bio-oil into the area and potentially seeing a physio or massage therapist to do cross-friction massage as the scarring inside the wound remodels.

No one should be fobbed off by any healthcare professional regardless of their choice to take any drug (booze and tobacco included). If you've got an acute problem - like you had - you need to see someone about it ASAP, and your story is a great illustration of what can happen if things are left to fester. Like Phil says, be persistent.

Your body's pretty cool - if you have bacteria introduced into the soft tissue, it attempts to wall it off and surrounds it with white blood cells, as these fight the infection (in Phil's case staph aureus) some die and build up in the area causing that yellowy white appearance of pus (which when mixed with a bit of blood looks like a strawberry milkshake). Fibrous tissue develops in the area with time and an abscess forms - your body defends itself by walling off the infection so it doesn't travel through your blood and kill you. If the infection isn't drained, it will often track elsewhere. If it goes to your bone, it gets inside the bone and tracks through the marrow (osteomyelitis) killing the bone and creating a great place for bacteria to reproduce where it's difficult to get your white blood cells into (and any antibiotics) so then your in for more destructive surgery (or sometimes death if you leave it and it tracks elsewhere).

It's great that Phil has took the time to write his story and provide the pics and I hope he makes as full a recovery as possible. All the best.

hackskii

Sorry about the order, I can put the pics in order of the post but it will have double posts.

__________________
Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

Scott

PHHead

Jesus you sure you didn't just sit on a landmine mate lol, no but seriously that looks very painful, all the best and I'm sure once its healed you probably won't even notice it!