Post by pilonidalstories.com on Aug 28, 2017 12:45:36 GMT
“I am writing about my daughter’s problem with her pilonidal cyst in the hopes that others will listen to our experience on how to treat it. I am writing it after the fact, because I wanted to make sure this was going to work before I suggested it to others. Two years ago my 17 year old daughter Amanda was diagnosed with a pilonidal cyst by first her primary care physician, and then the general surgeon that she was referred to. The general surgeon scheduled surgery for it right away. Surgery was done and within one month it was opened up again. He said she would have to have another surgery. He could not give us any assurance that this would not reoccur again. He said they just keep coming back. We told him we would be getting a second opinion. Saw a second general surgeon and he said the same thing, but he would try to do his best. After that surgery he said there was alot of scar tissue but he thought he cleaned it all out. The scar started to heal but several holes appeared. We went to him again and he said, sorry, this will keep coming back. We decided we were not going to accept his prognosis. I then contacted our insurance company to find out about getting a referral for another surgical opinion. After explaining Amanda’s problem, they gave us the approval to see Dr. Elizabeth Raskin at Loma Linda Medical Center. We made an appointment immediately, and the doctor’s first comment when she saw Amanda’s wound was that this was no longer a pilonidal cyst, but fissures that burrow their way in the cavity of where the cyst was. The only way to heal this was for her perform a procedure to connect all the fissures into one, and then leave it open to be packed. She also said that she sees patients like Amanda that come in after 2 or 3 surgeries and nothing helped. A big note to all: DO NOT ALLOW A GENERAL SURGEON TO PERFORM THIS SURGERY. THEY DO NOT KNOW THIS PROCEDURE. SEE A COLON AND RECTAL SURGEON. After many months of filing grievences and appeals with our insurance company because they would not approve the surgery by Dr. Raskin, it was finally approved. Stick to your guns on who you want performing surgery on your body. I know the insurance company thought we would just go away if they kept denying it. We refused to give up.
Amanda’s surgery was done on March 2, 2016 by Dr. Raskin. I was in charge of the most important part of this healing, as Dr. Raskin put it. Her wound would need to be cleaned and packed twice a day for at least 4-6 weeks or longer. This is because this wound needs to heal from the inside out. We stuck to this religiously and saw great improvement in the first month. Our doctor wanted to see Amanda weekly after surgery to make sure it was healing properly. Then once she saw there was some progress, it changed to every two weeks. Everything was going well and less and less packing was needed as time went on because the wound was healing to the top skin layer. We were closer to being 100% healed. Then a small tiny hole suddenly appeared. Dr. Raskin examined Amanda and actually made the hole opening a little larger so that we could continue packing it. We did the packing again and the hole disappeared. That was 2 weeks ago. Today on 7/14/16 Dr. Raskin told Amanda at her follow up that she was 100% healed. She had us make an appointment to see her again in 6 weeks to check on her progress, but told her there should not be any more problems. It was all hard work that Amanda and I had to go through to get to this point, but let me tell you it was all worth it. Amanda can now live her life without the pain anymore. I will do a follow up again later to let you know if there were any more problems or not. I cannot stress enough that if you get a pilondial cyst do not let a general surgeon do surgery on you unless he knows this procedure. See a colon and rectal surgeon only. Best of luck to you all.”
Amanda’s surgery was done on March 2, 2016 by Dr. Raskin. I was in charge of the most important part of this healing, as Dr. Raskin put it. Her wound would need to be cleaned and packed twice a day for at least 4-6 weeks or longer. This is because this wound needs to heal from the inside out. We stuck to this religiously and saw great improvement in the first month. Our doctor wanted to see Amanda weekly after surgery to make sure it was healing properly. Then once she saw there was some progress, it changed to every two weeks. Everything was going well and less and less packing was needed as time went on because the wound was healing to the top skin layer. We were closer to being 100% healed. Then a small tiny hole suddenly appeared. Dr. Raskin examined Amanda and actually made the hole opening a little larger so that we could continue packing it. We did the packing again and the hole disappeared. That was 2 weeks ago. Today on 7/14/16 Dr. Raskin told Amanda at her follow up that she was 100% healed. She had us make an appointment to see her again in 6 weeks to check on her progress, but told her there should not be any more problems. It was all hard work that Amanda and I had to go through to get to this point, but let me tell you it was all worth it. Amanda can now live her life without the pain anymore. I will do a follow up again later to let you know if there were any more problems or not. I cannot stress enough that if you get a pilondial cyst do not let a general surgeon do surgery on you unless he knows this procedure. See a colon and rectal surgeon only. Best of luck to you all.”