Hey there. I had this exact this done last November. Had a large lump on my lower right abdomen. Basically they take you into the ct room and give you an iv I think mostly so they can shoot that dye into you so that they can scan everything better. Then they give you local freezing around the area. Then they basically just puncture the skin and stick a big seringe in to drain it as much as possible - but they don't want the cavity to collapse yet so they don't drain it too much (this is why you need to have the drain in place).
It doesn't hurt so much as there is lots of pressure when they are puncturing. I would see though if you could take something to calm your nerves if you're anxious about it. I think that would have helped me because I was freaked. The whole procedure though only took me maybe 20 minutes and I was out of there.
I had a drain put in that kind of just hung down the side of my hip with a big bag attached to the end. They attach it on there pretty good so there wasn't much worry of it moving or coming off. Mine didn't drain that much ... just a little the first couple days. Then because mine was pretty shallow the puss actually just started draining out of the actual hole that the drain was poked through...so I basically just continually bandaged that up and let it pour out of there.
I think I had it in for maybe a week and then I just removed it myself once the doc gave the OK. Removing it was scary and I could have had the doc do it, but I kind of like to control my own pain so I thought I'd give it a whirl. It actaully didn't hurt at all.
One thing you should make sure of is to complete your antibiotics after and make sure the abscess is gone. I think I quite mine too soon and it ended up coming back a few months later .... but it might be unrelated too, they're not sure.
I hope this helps. Honestly....there are WAY worse procedures than this. It'll hurt a bit - but know that the pain will only be for a very short period of time.
