Furunculosis is an inflammation of the hair follicle, which is accompanied by suppuration. Frequent companions of this disease are weakness, fever, headache. It often happens that the purulent contents of the boil breaks inward and not outward. As a result, infection multiplies. New boils appear. To avoid this process, dermatologists and surgeons recommend opening the very first boil in sterile conditions. This will prevent subsequent prolonged and expensive antibiotic treatment. From this article you will learn how to open a boil.
Stages of boil development
Surgeons distinguish three stages of the development of furunculosis:
- Infiltrate - hardening, a small tubercle, bump are felt around the hair follicle during palpation. When pressed on it, the patient feels a sharp pain. A white dot can be seen in the center of the tubercle - this is pus, which is still inside, under the skin. After a few days, the infiltrate swells - the tubercle increases, begins to protrude, the purulent point also becomes larger in diameter.
- The stage of suppuration occurs approximately on the fourth or fifth day after the formation of the infiltrate. Purulent contents increase. At this stage of the development of the disease, surgical intervention can be performed to prevent the release of pus inside.
- At the stage of necrosis, the boil acquires a conical shape. If you touch it, the skin around the suppuration becomes burgundy. The patient experiences pain at the site of the lesion. Often the temperature rises. Symptoms of furunculosis resemble a cold. At this stage, it is too late to use ointments that open the boil. Surgical intervention required.
What to do if a boil breaks itself?
If the course of the disease is not complicated by anything, pus can break out by itself. It is important to ensure that the contents of the boil come out precisely, and not go inside. How to distinguish these two options? If a breakthrough occurs outside, a dirty yellow trace with a saccharice will remain on clothes or bedding. The pain will pass on the second day without the use of additional drugs.
Do not touch the wound with dirty hands: you can easily infect. It is worth making a compress from a clean cotton pad moistened with any disinfectant (for example, "Chlorhexidine").
The boil should be opened only in a hospital, in complete sterility. It is strictly forbidden to try to squeeze it with nails or fingers. Pressure on the affected area most often leads to an internal breakthrough of the boil and the infection getting into the blood, which almost always leads to sepsis, and as a result to a long and expensive treatment.
Where to open a boil with medication?
At the stage of necrosis, self-medication attempts are fraught with serious complications. How is a boil opened? Necessary operation: you need to make an incision and take out the contents of the abscess. At home, it is impossible to carry it out.
You should contact the emergency room, from there they will be sent to a dermatologist or an incision will be made right there in the presence of a sterile room and the necessary tools.
Where to open the boil for free? If the patient has a medical insurance policy from a Russian insurance company, they are obliged to render assistance to him at any polyclinic or emergency room in the Russian Federation at no cost. All expenses for medications during surgical intervention are borne by the insurance company.
How is the procedure
Almost all patients are interested in the question: is it painful to open the boil? No, this procedure is simple and takes about five minutes. The patient feels pain only at the time of injection of the anesthetic drug near the boil.
The procedure takes place in a surgical room under conditions of complete sterility. Experienced surgeons have a full arm - they perform the operation quickly, deftly and with minimal health consequences for the patient. Due to the peculiarities of furunculosis (suppuration in complex cases may be at a depth of about 4-7 cm under the skin), the operation is performed under local anesthesia.
The surgeon treats the skin with an antiseptic, chips the affected area with lidocaine. After five to ten minutes, the patient no longer feels pain. A deep but thin incision is made. With the help of a special tool, a solid rod is removed along with the sacrum. Then the wound is cleaned of the remnants of pus. A special medical drainage impregnated with an antibacterial solution is placed in it. A compress is applied on top.
Does hitting a boil hurt or not? Most often, patients themselves think up excitements and fears with the phrase "surgical intervention". It should be remembered that this operation is very simple and low risk.
What tools does the surgeon use
Many patients are scared by the chest with tools, which the surgeon puts on the table before the operation. In fact, only three tools are needed to open the boil.
This is a scalpel for primary dissection. Then, a boil root is extracted with a special loop from medical steel. An antibacterial drug is poured into the wound. Then, with the help of a thin special needle, the cavity of an empty boil is cleaned of the remnants of pus, a sacrum, dead skin tissue of the epidermis.
At home, an inexperienced person can not fully carry out such a procedure. Often patients try to squeeze the boil with nails or fingers, despite the fact that they experience severe pain even with a simple touch on the affected area of the skin. If you once see how a boil is opened in a hospital, then there will be no doubt that it is impossible to carry out this procedure correctly at home.
Wound care after surgery
The day after surgery, you need to come for a dressing change and examination. This process is often carried out by a nurse. It is necessary to change the drainage to a new one, a new compress is applied on top.
It is strictly forbidden to climb a wound with your finger or scissors or any other tool! This can provoke new suppuration and re-formation of the boil.
On the second day at the examination, the condition of the boil is assessed. If healing goes well, and suppuration does not form again, then drainage becomes unnecessary. You can then take care of the wound at home. How to prevent the appearance of scars after opening the boil, you will learn a little lower.
Ways to accelerate wound healing after surgery
If the boil is deployed in the face or hands, then there will remain an aesthetic wound. With what means can you quickly and, most importantly, completely cure a wound on your face? A furuncle opened by a surgeon often leaves scars. But you can get rid of them. Here are the tools that will help in this matter:
- "Kontraktubeks" - is issued in the form of ointment and cream. Ointment contains a larger amount of active substance and is more effective than cream. Allows you to get rid of the scar obtained as a result of surgical opening of the boil.
- "Bepanten" - a cream that accelerates the process of skin regeneration. It will help to heal the wound faster after opening a purulent abscess.
- Solcoseryl is an analogue of Bepanten at a lower price.
- "Levomekol" is an inexpensive ointment that has the ability to draw purulent contents from a wound. This ointment should be used if the patient has doubts that all the pus and the sacrum have come out of an unhealed wound.
- Mesotherapeutic cocktails with superficial administration are able to completely smooth out the scar on the most delicate parts of the face (the area around the eyes and the skin of the lips) after a surgical incision.
If you want to remove the scar as quickly as possible after opening the boil, then you should resort to the procedure of laser resurfacing of the skin in a beauty salon. This procedure will help you find perfectly smooth skin, as it was before the operation to remove the abscess and its contents.
How to get rid of a boil without surgery?
There are many recipes for traditional medicine. Most often, they are based on the principle of blood purification (for the prevention of recurrence of furunculosis) and as quickly as possible pulling pus out.
The most effective way, as the boil is opened, was described above. This is an operation. Only it gives a one hundred percent guarantee against relapses of furunculosis. Attempts at self-opening and squeezing most often lead to infection and the spread of boils over the entire surface of the body. If the primary site of the abscess is the neck, then we should expect the spread of furunculosis on the shoulders and upper chest. A disease always “descends” through the body. In especially severe cases, boils begin to tie randomly, simultaneously on the trunk, limbs, face, and scalp.
How to open a boil at home?
The first rule - in no case should you squeeze the abscess with your nails and hands! This most often leads to the departure of pus inside and a relapse of furunculosis.
How to open the boil so that all the pus comes out? You can not make any pressing movements. It is not without reason that surgeons generally do not touch the skin at all, but make a light dissection with a scalpel, and then with the help of a disinfected loop, they remove the abscess rod out. At home, there is no scalpel, no sterility, no medical loop. So it’s not possible to perform a similar operation in a hospital.
The consequences of improper self-intervention
An independently opened boil in the best case will again become inflamed, and in the worst case, the development of sepsis is possible, as a result of which the infection will spread throughout the body. As a result, it will take a long and expensive treatment in a hospital setting.
To mitigate the consequences of self-treatment, you can try the following ointments (but if blood poisoning has begun, then everything will be in vain - you will have to go to hospital anyway):
- Vishnevsky ointment - is popularly known as the best, "stretching" pus remedy. It is cheap and really contributes to the early maturation of the boil. After an abscess breakthrough, it must be used carefully, since if the ointment particles get deep into the wound, the inflammatory process can begin again.
- "Levomekol" is another ointment that should be used at the stage of maturation of the boil. If the patient noticed an infiltrate (the first stage of furunculosis) - you can safely start using Levomekol.
Follow-up wound care at home
If the core is almost completely out, treatment is continued with the use of wound healing medicinal ointments and creams. For this, you can continue to use Levomekol.
If the patient makes compresses and dressings - you need to change them as often as possible, optimally - every two to three hours. For about a couple of hours a day, you need to leave the boil free in clean, dry air. Access of oxygen to the wound will contribute to speedy healing.