Thank you for joining us, here on the Auburn Medical Group Youtube channel.
Discussing this video on an abscess drainage
that Dr. Gawayne Vaughan did.
Dr. Gawayne, thank you for joining us on the Youtube channel.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
This case, if I remember correctly, the patient had
Diabetes, and had been seen the week before? Is that right?
Came back and she had this large area over the left ankle that was just very red
and inflamed. It was warm to the touch.
And there was that area over the lateral, the outside of the ankle
that was maybe 4 to 5 centimeters in diameter, that was just really bulging and
swollen, and when you pushed on it, it was what we called fluctuant, just kind of boggy.
Which indicates that there was some fluid underneath it.
So with fluid being underneath it, that would be an abscess.
In watching this video, if you are squeamish, or you don't like seeing
fluid come out of people's bodies, do not proceed to watch the rest of this video.
Well, I can tell you now that we made the right decision to cut it.
Oh good!
Lots of pus in there.
Okay.
Well, you can feel that.
Yeah, that there was a collection in there.
Yeah.
Yep.
And here it comes.
I have a feeling that we are going to have to pack this too.
But, we will get all of the pus out first.
Okay, now when you drained it, you were also poking it with a probe,
what was that all about?
There can be what we call loculations, or areas where there are septations,
and the pus can get loculated, or caught.
So you packed in some gauze wick.
I did, and the biggest reason we do that is to keep it open.
It's going to continue to drain, and we want it to continue to drain,
as long as there is pus collecting in the area.
So the biggest reason is not for that to make the infection go away,
but to keep it open to keep that pus draining out.
And our viewers may see other similar videos, where a culture is taken.
You did not take a culture in this particular case.
I didn't. She's a diabetic, so there is a slight increased possibility that this may be a weird infection.
The biggest thing that we worry about is an anaerobic infection.
But anaerobic infections have a very distinct smell.
You don't have smell-a-vision, so I guess we weren't able. You don't know.
But actually, it didn't have that distinct smell,
so I did not take a culture.
The most-likely one here, given the abscess is MRSA, a staph infection.
A resistant staph.
Okay, and you can watch a video on that here.
So here we are, 2 days later
to re-examine the wound.
As you can see, the redness has gone down a bit.
The area has been covered in dressing this whole time,
so we will take that off and take a look at the abscess.
The area where the abscess is is a little macerated, meaning it is a little wet, and moist in the area.
This means that it has continued to drain while we had that dressing on it.
It does also mean that we need to re-pack it at this time.
Well thank you for joining us, Dr. Gawayne Vaughan!
My pleasure!
Until next time, this is Dr. Gawayne Vaughan, and Dr. Mark Vaughan telling you to stay in good health!
A reminder: We are doctors, but we are not your doctors.
Unless we are your doctors.
But, if that is the case, we need to take care of any similar thing here in person in our office.
This video is not diagnosing you, or treating you, or allowing you to treat anyone else.
This is just for educational purposes only. Not for medical treatment.