How to tell if an abscess is healing

Key takeaways

• Signs of abscess healing include reduced discoloration, pain, and sensitivity to touch around the abscess, as well as a decrease in swelling, which indicates the body’s inflammatory response is slowing or stopping.
• While rare, an abscess may drain itself, and a sign of healing is the discharge of clear or pink fluid, as opposed to foul-smelling, yellow or green pus, which indicates infection.
• Abscesses can take 2 to 6 weeks to heal, and if it doesn’t heal in that time, keeps recurring, or if signs of infection develop, medical attention is needed.

Overview

Abscesses are lumps beneath your skin, within your mouth, or on any areas of soft tissue. They are often painful to the touch and may appear red, pink, or discolored.

Most often, bacterial infections cause abscesses if you experience a tear or damage to your skin barrier. The lump is typically filled with pus, bacteria, and debris.

Sometimes, abscesses can go away on their own. But if your abscess does not heal by itself and your symptoms worsen, you may need medical treatment. This is important because leaving an abscess without treatment can cause the infection to spread inside your body or even lead to sepsis.

Keeping an eye on how the abscess is healing is key to avoiding complications. Several signs can help you tell whether it’s going away on its own.

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How to tell an abscess is healing

Keeping an eye on how the abscess is healing is key to avoiding complications. Several signs can help you tell whether it’s going away on its own.

Reduced pain

An abscess can cause pain, and it is often sensitive to the touch. This is because the growth of a lump beneath or within your skin can lead to pressure on your nerves or damage to blood vessels in the surrounding area.

Pain is often a side effect of inflammation. Inflammation is the process that your body uses to help heal the abscess or any wound.

As your abscess starts to heal, this pain may start to subside. For example, you may be able to touch the surrounding skin without noticeable pain.

Reduced swelling

Swelling is another side effect of your body’s natural inflammatory healing process. This swelling leads the abscess to form a lump as your body tries to protect you from the cause of the abscess, most typically a bacterial infection. If an abscess heals by itself, this swelling will start to subside on its own.

This means the lump will start to look or feel smaller with time.

Rarely, a doctor may need to prescribe antibiotics to help heal an abscess if it’s caused or worsened by bacteria. Once antibiotics take effect, you may notice a reduction in swelling at the abscess site.

Drainage

Abscesses typically have a pinpoint hole at the top, on the surface of your skin. If an abscess is not severe, you may notice pus start to leak out of this hole. This is the process of the abscess draining itself.

This may look like an infection. But if the pus doesn’t smell and is not yellow or green in color, you should have nothing to worry about. A healing abscess will produce clear or pink fluid.

An abscess draining itself is rare, though. Most often, a doctor will need to perform a minor procedure to manually drain the abscess, particularly if the abscess is the result of an infection or it becomes infected itself.

How long should it take to heal?

How long a skin abscess takes to heal will depend on its size and severity. Typically, wounds take between 2 and 6 weeks to fully heal on their own.

An abscess that does not heal within this time or repeatedly comes back is known as chronic or recurrent. If you receive treatment for an abscess but it does not seem to be effective, speak with a doctor again. They may refer you to a specialist or recommend more specific treatment.

Signs an abscess is infected

Not receiving treatment for an abscess can lead to infection of the surrounding skin or soft tissue. It is important to recognize the symptoms of an infection that has spread beyond the abscess. Infections can lead to serious complications like sepsis.

These symptoms include:

• redness or discoloration that extends beyond the lump site
• fever
• a foul taste in your mouth (if it is a dental abscess)
• body aches
• fatigue
• pus that is yellow or green, with a foul odor
• worsening swelling
• increasingly severe pain

Treatments for abscesses

Some abscesses go away on their own without any intervention from a medical professional. But because infection is a common cause of abscesses, medical treatment is often necessary.

The treatment a doctor recommends will depend on the size and severity of the abscess you have. The most common type of treatment for an abscess is cutting and draining the abscess. This involves an incision at the site of the abscess that allows the pus, bacteria, and other debris to drain out of the abscess.

A doctor may also prescribe antibiotics to help treat the infection from the inside.

If you experience a dental abscess, you will require treatment. This often involves tooth removal and antibiotics.

Common antibiotics that you may be prescribed include:

• amoxicillin (Amoxil)
• cefprozil (Cefzil)
• cephalexin (Keflex)
• ciprofloxacin (Cipro)
• doxycycline (Adoxa)

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Summary

Abscesses are your body’s way of protecting you from something that invades your skin, often through a broken skin barrier. Most often, this is a bacterial infection. Abscesses can occur on your skin, in your mouth, or even inside the body.

Signs that an abscess is healing include reduced pain and swelling. Abscesses can disappear by themselves or may require medical treatment. This will vary depending on the size, severity, and location of your abscess.

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