I was 24 when I got my polo ideal abscess. I had a lot of pain near my tailbone but nothing you could visibly see. It hurt a lot to sit on or touch, and as I was on holidays I just pumped the nurofen and hoped for the best. Soon I started getting a fever and unable to eat. It quickly escalated to a full blown fever, I’m talking sweating buckets and buckets but feeling cold and not eating anything. I was prescribed antibiotics a few days earlier which did nothing and after being in excruciating pain, went to the hospital and had it drained. This all happened in about the space of a week, so very quickly really. I had lots of trouble with mine healing so a few months later went for another surgery which took nearly a year to heal up afterwards and I had a few bouts of antibiotics along the way. I don’t have health cover but in Australia the public hospital did the procedure, though I had to pay for the specialist appointments. If you’re in Australia you can also be referred to home care nursing, which helped with costs instead of going to a Doctors surgery everyday to get packing/ dressings done. At one point I was referred to a wound clinic as it wasn’t healing but we got there eventually. I’ve written this before on here, and I’m by no means into potions and remedys, but someone told me to take Collodial Silver everyday to help with healing. It basically helps kill bacteria in the body…I was sceptical but tried it and it could be a coincidence but things started healing pretty well after that. So I’d suggest trying that if anyone is stuck…it can’t hurt. But make sure you buy it as some homemade stuff can actually make your skin have a blue tinge. Been 2 years now and I’m hoping I never ever have a reoccurrence but it’s always in the back of my mind. I still get a sore bum from sitting a certain way too long, but that could be scar tissue I’m not sure. I hope people read these and realise it gets better in the end!