How to judge whether the breast abscess incision has healed? Go to the doctor

A patient asked: The incision after the breast abscess incision and drainage operation has healed on its own without changing the dressing in the past few days. Do I still need to see a doctor?

Patients who undergo hospitalization for breast abscess surgery often cannot stay in the hospital until the incision heals, especially those with non-lactation mastitis. The reason is that non-lactation mastitis has the characteristics of unknown etiology, prolonged and repeated attacks; and the hospital cannot keep you in the hospital until the wound heals completely due to the shortage of beds and the average length of stay. This results in patients who undergo incision and drainage of breast abscess needing to stay in the surgical hospital or local hospital outpatient clinic for a long time to change dressings.

Fortunately, after a month or two of dressing changes, the annoying incision finally healed and closed. At this time, you would think that now that it has healed, you don’t have to go to the surgeon for a follow-up check. Living so far away from the hospital, it’s very tiring to run back and forth.

This kind of thinking is normal, but also dangerous.

The key is: Has your incision really healed?

We know that the purpose of dressing change after breast abscess incision and drainage is, firstly, to change the dressing and drainage strip every day, so that the drainage strip can be placed more and more "shallow" to give space for the tissue to grow upward from the base; secondly, to change the sterile dry gauze to maintain the "siphon effect" so that the newly generated pus in the wound surface can be sucked out and difficult to gather. Therefore, during the dressing change process, we must insist on changing the dressing every day, and insist on changing the dressing at any time when the outermost gauze is a little wet.

After the long process above, many patients find it difficult to go to the hospital every day for dressing changes for one or two months. In the end, they may not change the dressing for several days, and suddenly find that the incision has healed. At this time, don't naively think that the incision is completely healed. Because this healing may be an illusion, that is, the skin surface is healed, but there are still small abscess cavities and a small amount of pus under the skin. This situation will recur quickly, resulting in the previous surgical costs, dressing time, and pain being wasted, and you have to start all over again, that is, another incision and drainage + repeated dressing changes + long-term impact on normal life and work.

Your wisest choice at this time is to see your surgeon as soon as possible, no matter how far the journey is or whether you have to take time off or be deducted money, to have a physical examination or other relevant examinations to find out whether "false healing" exists, so that you can make a judgment and take measures as soon as possible, and you can live a normal and worry-free life.