Hello all. I am from Vancouver, BC and i lived with a pilonidal problem for 3 years before i had any trouble. during those 3 years it was very minor, almost no drainage or pain unless i had a particularly nasty fall onto my tailbone. this january i had a massive flare up and went from zero pain to incredible pain that had me incapacitated for two days until the cyst ended up opening and draining itself. within 3 days it was back to normal. however i visited my doctor and she recommended i see a surgeon. my surgeon was very helpful and had done the open and closed procedures before, she had never heard of a cleft lift. in any event i opted for an open surgery and it went really well. after a month i'd see great results but now here i am 4 months later and its stalled. the packing came out a month ago and i'd been doing sitz baths but almost no improvement has been made. ive gotten so used to living with the open wound that i think my problem is my sleep habits, nutrition and general health. at first i was very careful about eating healthy, not drinking and getting lots of rest but as i grow frustrated with this wound i've been trying to have a social life. im 21, so it is tough to live a spartan lifestyle during the summer months. any ideas or feedback would be greatly appreciated, thanks. tl;dr - 4 months after open surgery and still not healed, ideas?
Hi millybear. You are not alone in trying to get a stubborn wound closed. There have been many conversations here on how to manage the problem, and you may find a lot of useful information if you search around. Though I don't have experience dealing with recovery from open excision surgery I can tell you from all I have read that you should not blame yourself for the wound not healing. Yes, the better you eat etc the better your overall health will be- but sometimes wounds from this surgery have a hard time closing no matter how well you take care of yourself. Don't beat yourself up. I do hope this is all over for you soon and you get to have a normal 21 year old life.
hi milly - i had the same issue with my original surgery and was told to expect it to not fully heal/have flareups for ~2 years post surgery. i would recommend getting in touch with your surgeon asap / getting a second opinion as you may end up battling with it not healing for a while otherwise i was the same age when i had my open excision - so i can absolutely TOTALLY relate to not wanting to be stuck at home doing nothing
I had an open procedure done in March that has yet to completely close up, and I also turned 21 this past winter. I had my surgery done over spring break and the second half of my spring semester was torturous- I tried to be as healthy as possible, getting as much sleep as I could, eating healthy, etc. I stopped drinking and partying, not that I was a huge party animal to begin with, and I chose not to play the spring season with the rest of my college soccer team because my wound was still being packed. Here I am 4 months later and my wound is STILL not healed. It's still draining a bit, bleeding occasionally, and can be extrmelely tender. After the first two months of not healing I realized I couldn't just stop being a normal college senior and although I'm still eating relatively healthy and sleeping (it is summer, after all) normally, I've indulged in a fair share of parties and I've begun working out again, none of which seems to have any effect on the wound. I'm hoping to see a pilonidal "specialist" I found on this website before school starts again, because I can't imagine sitting in class for 7 hours a day. I hope everything works out for you!
Thanks for the support and advice guys, just an update for me, i decided to have the wound care nurse try silver nitrate just to see if we could spark some sort of healing response from my wound and a week later im happy to report that theres visible improvement and the weeping/drainage has lessened considerably. the nurse and i have decided to use silver nitrate and see what happens in another week. staying positive and happy knowing im not alone in my battle! thanks everyone
