ciclista_pazza

Ive had a saddle sore right near my groin for nearly 3 months. When it first occurred, I did ride on it for a couple of weeks when I should have stopped but I've been off the bike for over 2 months now. My bike is my sole means of transportation, so this is killing me.

I tried everything for it including hot compresses, epsom salt baths, turmeric, zinc oxide, hemmorhoid cream, witch hazel, hydrogen peroxide, black drawing salve (PRID and ichtyhmmol) and probably a few other things and nothing has helped. It has never come to a head and for the most part was not terribly painful except when I rode on it. About 3 weeks ago I went to urgent care to see if they could lance and drain it but the nurse said it was too hard to lance - she tried but only blood was coming out. She prescribed Doxycycline (an antibiotic) which I took for about a week with no results. I then went another urgent care a week later to see if they were able to drain it but was again told it was too hard to lance and this time was prescribed two antibiotics - Bactrim and Cephalexin. Those are both extremely strong antibiotics but they still didn't help my saddle sore, although it did reduce in size. At this point, it's not terribly large, but it's still there and in my experience, that means I can't bike.

Yesterday, I went to my doctor for his opinion - he checked the sore and said I should be able to bike right now with no problem as he thinks it has mostly healed and that the remaining bump is just scar tissue. Everything I've ever read about saddle sores indicates that the lump (or core) needs to be removed before you can even think of biking again or otherwise it will return. I asked my doctor about the core and whether it still being there could be an issue and he said my body will likely re-absorb it. I think this is possible since in the past, most of my saddle sores just went away with time off the bike - they didn't burst or anything. However, I don't know about the idea of biking while it's still a lump.

I live in Arizona and the summers here are brutal (it's 108 degrees today!) so I may well take the summer off for the most part since I don't want any more trouble down there, but I was thinking that if he thinks it's ok to ride, maybe I will at least take an occasional ride to see how it goes. But I wanted to get some feedback first if possible. Not having seen the sore of course, but based on what I've explained here, do any of you agree or disagree with his diagnosis, or have any additional input?

One other thing that was a little perplexing is - he said that if it returns, he will refer me to an OB/GYN (I'm female of course) and then they can look into removing it. I was confused by this - would an OB/GYN or any specialty doctor really be appropriate for something like this? I know it's in that region but boils can occur anywhere and it seems odd to me that a specialist would need to treat it.

Thanks in advance for any guidance. By the way, I've been biking regularly for nearly 10 years, so I'm no stranger to saddle sores, but in the past they have always gone away within a reasonable amount of time off the bike. This one is behaving a bit differently and has me scratching my head. And in the meantime, I miss biking like it was a dear lost friend and am in agony without it!