Abscess Stitch!

[Dprimal]

Well Gents,

I’ve been rockin’ & rollin’ with my Titan for a few weeks now, but that came to an abrupt end when I woke up one morning with puss & blood in my shorts! I had surgery in March 2025 and my recovery went great. You’d have to look at my other posts to get the exact timeline of my recovery, but it was fairly quick and I had no major issues other than some problems finding the deflate bars on the Titan Classic.

Last Saturday night, I felt a little bit of swelling on my balls near the scrotal incision site. It wasn’t anything alarming, I’d been hiking on Friday so I figured it was just a little swelling from that since I’ve not hiked in a while. I’d already been released to exercise and have been lifting weights, doing jiu-jitsu, boxing, & hiking for a few weeks. I woke up early Sunday morning because I rolled over and the location where the swelling was, was hurting a little; so I went to the couch. When I woke up Sunday morning to go to church, there was puss-looking fluid mixed with blood on my shorts….then I freaked out. I squeezed a lot of gunk out of it then drowned the area with alcohol. I did that 2x.

I called my dr, then emailed a video of it to him. He told me to come in first thing Monday morning and he also called in some antibiotics and an anti-fungal (idk why the anti-fungal, but I took it). By Monday morning, I noticed that clear stuff and blood were coming out of a very very small pin-hole sized spot in the incision. I put a bandage on it and got to his office when they opened.

He said that I have an abscessed stitch, but he had no idea how it could’ve happened. Everything had been healed-up and was going great. I wasn’t even aware that I had stitches under the skin that were dissolving. He said that somehow, one popped, which exposed a very small pin-hole sized spot in my scrotum, which got infected.

The only way thing I can think of that would’ve caused this was that I had squeezed the deflate bars too hard the week prior, which popped the stitch; then either fluid from sex or sweat from all of the activities that I do, got in there and caused the infection. He told me to continue taking the meds, keep it smothered with antibiotics, keep it covered, and don’t do any unnecessary movements. The part that was a literal kick in the balls is that he said, “if this isn’t looking better by next Monday, you’ll be in the OR on Tuesday morning!”

I’ve been taking the antibiotics and anti-fungal religiously, and changing the bandage 3x per day. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but there have been a few times a hint of blood was on the bandage. The swelling has also gone down. However, this whole situation is IN MY HEAD so bad that it’s all I can think about. If Inhave to go through this process again, right after I’ve had plenty of weeks of being back to normal, I’m going to flip! If this was 5-15 years after my surgery & I needed a replacement…that’s one thing, but I just healed up! I’ve been living the best life I’ve had in a very long time and now this off the wall stuff happens and set me back both physically and mentally. I’ll update more when I get some information next week.

[dan_bionic]

Dpriaml,
if the abscess is from a stich and you are covered with antibiotics and keep it dry and clean locally, the stitch drains out and it heals in 2-3 weeks from alone, no need of surgery.
Just relax and report, after you've seen your doc next Monday.
Dan

[Dprimal]

Dpriaml,
if the abscess is from a stich and you are covered with antibiotics and keep it dry and clean locally, the stitch drains out and it heals in 2-3 weeks from alone, no need of surgery.
Just relax and report, after you've seen your doc next Monday.
Dan

Thanks for the words of encouragement. This situation is occupying my whole thought process. I feel like it’s getting better each day, but I can tell that there’s still a little bit of a bump where the stitches are, so that’s worrying me.

[LGXDownunder]

I'm sorry to learn of that. My understanding is that we all remain at some risk of infection for maybe up to a year or so.
So you probably didn't do anything wrong. It sounds like your current treatment regime may be improving things.
Keeping my fingers crossed for you that no further surgery is needed.

[Kodixx]

Dpriaml, really sorry to hear of that problem. Best wishes for a continued smooth recovery !

- Chuck

[ElbowRoom]

Oh, that's awful. Glad you're responding to the meds and things seem to be improving. Hopefully if you have to go back in the OR Hakky can clean and flood the area with antibiotics without a full revision.

It sounds like you've been very active, there could be any number of ways you could have popped that stitch. Keep taking care of yourself and let us know how it goes!

All the best.