Tales of the Pigsa

It starts like a pimple, then becomes a small lump, then you find yourself in pain because of an angry red hardened mound. It shows up on your back, in your kilikili, elbow, on your butt cheeks, or worse in between it. That small angry mound would actually bring you to your knees because it is very painful and if untreated. And then the mound progresses and an "eye" appears and you basically just have to wait until it bursts, unless you you do the bottle-thingy (and I don't really want to describe what that is about). 

The Pigsa, in Western terms it's called a boil.

(I don't have any photos of it sorry).

Now you might wonder WTH I'm blogging about it. LOL. No, I don't have one now, but I experienced it as a kid and for some strange reason last night's telebabad with the Sweetie veered towards the P-word. So we ended up talking about it for awhile.

When I was a kid my Mom and I stayed in Bicol for a few weeks to clean-up my Mama Lola's house. She passed away a few months before so we were tasked to clean-up the house and re-paint it. That was the time that I got a pigsa on my elbow. And then on my kilikili! It was a very painful summer!

Anyway, I realized last night that I don't really know how the pigsa comes about because they gave me the following reasons when I was a kid:

1. You don't eat vegetables.

2. You have dirty blood.

3. Because you did not take a bath! 

Argggh! 

So I did a bit of research and apparently a pigsa is a skin abscess and according to MedicineNet.com it can be caused by prolonged travel (because of sitting), ingrown hair, a splinter or even a cut. 

Now the mystery has been solved after 2 decades. LOL. 

Did you ever have one?