POSSIBLE TMI ALERT!
Thankfully I'm not overly prone to saddle sores, but following a 400km Audax last weekend, I was left with a 50p sized sore, 'gristly' lump in the region of my right sit bone. As far as I can tell there was no associated broken skin. I also felt pretty run down for a couple of days after, with swollen inguinal glands, but put all of the above down to a tough ride and poor sleep in the lead up to the event.
By Thursday, I felt sufficiently recovered to go out for a brisk 20 miles, in spite of the saddle sore not quite being 100% gone. During this, the sore was uncomfortable, but not excessively painful and I just didn't think anything of it. In the early hours of Friday, the sore area had spread throughout my right groin and even into the right side of my scrotum, with pain bad enough to wake me up. I struggled through the day, but by early afternoon I was starting to feel quite ill and walking was very painful.
I was lucky enough to get in with the local GP, who prodded and poked and hypothesized that there may be an abscess. He referred me straight to the Surgical admissions unit in Bath and packed me straight off there. The surgeons seemed a bit perplexed. They stuck me with a needle in the worst site of swelling to see if there was any pus, but nothing came out except a bit of blood. He didn't rule out an abscess but as my temperature was also high at 38.5 they ordered blood tests. These came back with inflammatory markers, so they opted to keep me in overnight on antibiotic drips and see how things were the following day. The Doctor who saw me yesterday was of the opinion that it was all just soft tissue damage and discharged me with amoxicillin clavulanate antibiotics and an appointment for tuesday morning.
Today, I'm back at work following an epic night's sleep (zero sleep in the hospital - how the hell does anyone ever recover in hopsitals when they don't allow you to sleep?) and feeling better, albeit still with the soreness and swelling. I can't believe that soft tissue damage could get so much worse so quickly, so I was just wondering if anyone else had had a similar experience?