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Why won't my doctor give me more antibiotics for healing a fistula?

Hi everyone. I'll try to make this as easy to read as possible.:ybiggrin:

In August of this year I had a real bad peri-rectal abscess drained. After two weeks it had come back. On 10/1/12 I had 4 seton bands placed. The drain wasn't big enough, so those were taken out. Over the course of all of this I was not on ANY antibiotics.

I spent a week in the hospital, and on 10/30/12 I had surgery to have a Penrose drain put in. My surgeon cut a six inch incision for the penrose drain placement.

The outer edges of the incision have been healing well. There's no evidence that pus is building up inside of me. Fevers and all other indicators have gotten better. Except for one thing. I'm still leaking a good deal of thick pus. It's clearly not good. It's nasty looking and smells gross. Which makes me think that there is still active infection. Why else would it stink.

But my surgeon sent me home with two antibiotics. FLAGYL 500mg to be taken three times a day for only four days. And LEVAQUIN 500mg to be taken once a day for twenty-five days. When I was in the hospital they had me on I.V. Flagyl and Levaquin at first. It wasnt solving much.

Then after the surgery they added VANCOMYCIN. They did the Vancomycin for only a day. Things improved greatly during that one day. The fluid coming out of me was thin and didnt stink. Then they discontinued the Vanco and after another day sent me home. They said the Vanco was supposed to be like a "hammer" to give the infection a final push. But as soon as I was done with it, the infection came back. My surgeon refuses to give me more antibiotics than what he sent me home with.

So here are my questions:

Is this a normal course of antibiotics to be sent home with? Why not leave me on the Vanco? I read people's comments on here about how they are on antibiotics for months for a fistula. That's what I want!

If the drainage is so nasty, why oh why wouldn't my doc prescribe me a stronger course of antibiotics? The Vancomycin was working so why not go with that? Obviously there is still active infection in me, so the antibiotics that I'm on now don't seem to be working.

Shouldn't the puss have gone away by now if this was coming along alright? I sometimes feel like my surgeon is trying to keep me sick so he can bring me in for more surgery.

Thank you in advance. I'm really freaking out.:frown:
 
Location
Ontario
I didn't get antibiotics right after my surgery; but I took them for about a month about 2 months after the surgery when the area around the setons got extremely painful and swollen.
 
I am not sure, instead of the surgeon maybe see a GI? I am on flagyl now myself, but it really doesn't seem to help too much. The only thing that seems to help is getting that inflammation down, and having the fistula close up. Humira was working, but then seemed to stop.....going to try Remicade.
 
Each time I have gone in for surgery on my fistula (4 times) I have been told that the surgery removed the infection (scraped it out) and there was no further reason for antibiotics. It would still drain but no fever
 
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