Be the change you want to see.

Last night's cyst bandage had a little blood on it! Which is good because vascularization is not something that cysts have, and I'm hoping that if there's blood moving through the "empty" space, the little microbuilders and microdestroyers in the blood will really dig in and remove/repurpose the remaining part of the cyst structure. (If you remember the proper name of the little guys above, please comment and remind me)

This morning (Happy November!) I changed the bandage after a short soak in the hot tub, and tried to express any fluid in the, what's more like a flat flap than like the bulging node of 8 weeks ago. I didn't get ANY of the cheesy yellow keratin, without pain I had a flow of actual blood, thin blood but red (Mwahahahah tough luck vampires) and it seems like my theory about vascularization may be correct. Bandaged it back up, gonna do more hot cups of tea held against my sternum today and see where we are tomorrow.

so it's two weeks tomorrow that the dratted thing softened and ruptured and started oozing.

i started "managing" it by squeezing and massaging the ooze out of it.
the ooze is called keratin, it fills most epethelial cysts with some sebum or skin oil.

uhhh after four days of massaging and hot compresses and bandaids i researched these cysts and one of the things all the websites agreed on was NO TOUCHY but OOPS TOO LaTE and it was feeling tender and i couldnt tell if it was sore from me poking at it (and it hopefully trying to heal) or maybe from starting to feel infected? so i made sure to clean it thoroughly again and bandage it with neosporin...

then last weekend i was reminded about hydrocolloid bandages, and using them was fascinating. as it draws material out, it makes the surface of the bandage look like soft contained pus. Like ready to squeeze. only you CANNOT squeeze because it's a bandage.

seriously given my long storied history on poking picking and peeling, these hydrocolloid bandaids are a gift from the gods. i can massage over them but cannot actually poke the healing wound directly. i get the fun!pain but not the infection risk!

score!

and then like just night before last i finally really read the box for the hydrocolloid bandages, along with recommended use instructions. i had been peeling them off at the 24 hour mark, but it turns out you don't have to. they say since they're waterproof and seal in place that you can leave them on for literally DAYS. they say you can leave them off till they basically FALL OFF when their job is done. "product is designed to fall off on its own" it even says!

I actually was able to go in the hot tub yesterday with this waterproof bandage, and it felt really good.

so it's been on for ~48 hours now, and the cyst isn't aching anymore when I shift from vertical to horizontal and vice versa. That's a nice improvement. Been massaging the hard edges of the cyst, partly because fun!pain and partly because massage has been easing the pain.

I have great faith in massage. it's changed my life. sure it won't fix EVERYTHING but it's helped me so much over the years. and I've also previously resolved a crazy painful cyst on my inner labia by way of a massage technique, the same technique I describe in my previous cyst related post.

so i have this bandage, and a hard ring of tissue that's the margins of this cyst. It makes sense to me that cysts return after surgery... if you miss even a little bit of the keratin (which is the hard protein stuff in fingernails and claws and horns) of course the body would encyst it again. Plus the trauma to the skin and flesh that is having surgery... one of the risk factors for making cysts get bigger was trauma, soooooo.

so i'm feeling better, less pain in the thing, less itching and annoyance, and i'm curious about how it will resolve.

gonna hydrate thoroughly this morning (afternoon? whatever), maybe get a warm compress on it again, and have a relatively mellow rest of my afternoon.

i have a book club book to read for four, let's see if I can finish it. ;)