Sterile Abscesses after Penniculectomy

Hello,
First, I would like to thank you in advance for helping me.

In June of 2008, I had 12lbs of skin removed in a panneculectomy.  I had gastric bypass surgery in 2006 and I have lost 200lbs.  The wound was a large one (from hip to hip).  I stayed in the hospital for 24 hrs and came home with 2 drainage tubes.  Everything healed well.  The drainage tubes stayed in for about 4 weeks and were removed.  About 10 to 12 weeks post op.. I started developing swollen and very sore areas along the incision line.  I had 4 to 5 small areas to actually pop open and clear drainage started coming out.

It has been almost a year since my surgery, and I will try to make the rest of this short and too the point for you.  But there are other details like some of the areas healing completely and new area open up.  That happened several times.

My surgeon has had me on many different types of ointments to try to help these areas heal.
He has also used silver nitrate to remove any "dead"(that is my wording) tissue to help heal.
Recently he has went the next step by doing an in office procedure where he removed the affected tissue and stitched one of the wounds closed.  After about 8 weeks, the wound looked really good and healed so the surgeon decided to do the same procedure on two more abscesses.  He is calling these areas sterile abscesses.
Now, it is about 2 weeks since the second in office procedure and the new wound is already popped open some and draining and now the 1st in office wound (which is about 12 weeks old) has a small area that has popped open and started draining.

My surgeon has done many cultures and tests on the tissue and drainage and everything is coming up negative.  I know I need to call him becasue of the new drainage but I feel certain that he will take me to the hospital for exploritory surgery (that is what he said that was going to be the next step)....

Do you have any ideas of what could be going on?  
  

[Howard Rosenberg, MD]

Massive weight loss results in some reduction of thickness and elasticity of your skin.  In addition, you may be having a delayed reaction to deep sutures.  Follow the advise of your surgeon.