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Home > abscess-glossary
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Abscess
noun
An accumulation of pus somewhere on the body usually, red and swollen with a lot of pain. There are multiple causes of abscesses: some can be life threatening and some can be a simple boil that needs to be lanced and drained.
Abscesses are usually on the skin. Sometimes they can be inside the body such as in appendicitis, making it harder to diagnose the reason for the pain and sometimes fever. Another abscess that is inside would be on the tonsils call peritonsillar abscess. This is a collection of pus behind the tonsils. A very painful abscess would be one that forms next to the anus. It is called a perianal abscess. It is very painful and swollen, making it hard for the person to sit down or defecate (have a bowel movement).
The skin abscess is usually called a boil. If a boil is found on the body that grows quite fast, the person needs to be concerned about the boil containing MRSA – a staph infection that is hard to get rid of and spreads quite easily.
Simple skin boils can occur from ingrown hairs, foreign material that gets lodged in the skin or sweat glands that become clogged. The typical boil can be treated with heat applications, drainage, and antibiotics to eliminate infection. BUT REMEMBER – a boil could also be the beginning of a MRSA infection. Always be careful with self diagnoses of boils.
Derived from the Latin word “abscēdere” which means “to separate from.”
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