Pilonidal Experience #50

“I write this as my fiance is on his way to the hospital for his second wide excision. We are in Europe, where many doctors are familiar with the disease but they have little or no reference of the amazing techniques of surgeons like Bascom. The first time I met my fiance, in May 2013, he was a healthy man in his early 30s with no idea what a pilonidal cyst was or how it would relate to him. The next time I saw him nearly a year later, he would have already had three or four surgeries either to remove cysts or to correct damage from previous surgeries. When I saw him he had a flap with a hole in the top and a canal that drained out to his right and also at the bottom. I helped him dress it every other day, never having heard of any of this myself. He saw a private surgeon in the UK, who referred him for wide excision with open healingy in December 2014. Like now, we were optimistic this would solve his issues and he’d be able to swim again by summer 2015. Instead, the wound was only half healed by 2015. Knowing what I know now, it’s likely because the wound was suffocated, we only changed the dressing once a day at most then, often every other day, and by summer it was maybe only getting changed two or three times a week. Like us, the practice nurses were getting worn on it, and hebhad been shifted from being seen by a nurse 4 times a week, to seeing healthcare assistants twice a week. I became pregnant with our daughter in April 2015, towards October 2015 I noticed redness and swelling in the middle of his scar, but the healthcare assistants just said “oh yeah scars do that, they change over time.” In mid-November, her was feeling veyr poorly and scheduled an appointment to see a nurse, who took one look at his wound and referred him to A&E immediately with a note to out him into surgery as soon as possible for a septic wound. I watched, heavily pregnant and stressed as sakes, as his temperature soared over the next 4 hours, finally he was put on antibiotics and had a surgery which rather crudely just cut a hole from top to bottom to pull out the infected material. After it again did not heal for months, the surgeon suggested another surgery, but suddenly after returning to packing with silver dressings it began to heal again, and with the arrival of our daughter we were fine to dress it once a day. Eventually we had a nurse who suggested colloidal silver to close the last bit on the bottom, as well as washing the wound twice a day and not dressing it anymore. This is what we would start doing towards the end of 2016, first still dressing it twice a day after a shower both times, then leaving it open. It was o ly after we stopped dressing it that the final bit deep inside healed. But the inside away from sight may never have properly healed – leakage suggested there was still an opening, and he would have pain. An MRI near the beginning of this year showed another cyst, and the doctor said he could get it removed or not but it would probably return. After two more bouts of leakage and pain, finally the rectal surgeon has booked him for another wide excision. This time, we’ve read this site. This time, we will maintain vigilance and ensure it is cleaned and dressed three times a day, less sitting and more efforts to keep it open and exposed to air, not tightly packed but also we will work to ensure the sides don’t knit together before the bottom heals, and we will get a doctor to refer him for laser hair removal and find some kind of no bump rx to use for preventing ingrown hairs further. I want him to be able to take his daughter swimming, I want him to be able to feel like this chapter of his life is finally complete.”