Matt I don’t know where you are from, but I am assuming everyone here is from America and I don’t know what methods they do. I am in Australia, and here they perfer to put you to sleep ( No doctor here likes draining these things while your awake), anyway they reckon the best way to make sure it doesn’t come back is to cut a big hole and drain and clean as much as they can, then leave it open to let it drain properly. My first surgery for it at hospital, the nurses were quiet horrific, they pulled that guaze ( and I swear it was atleast a foot or 2 long) out, with no pain relievers..I screamed that hospital down, and I bet they were glad to see the back of me, they gave me 2 pack of morpheine and sent me on my way. When I was readmitted the second time, I was asleep again, when it came time to take the guaze out, they gave me a morpheine shot, then put me in a salt bath, so it could come out a lot eaiser (which it did, I must admit I felt nothing)..then when the home nurse came out daily I would soak in a hot salt bath for 30mins, then she would squirt saline in it, put a covering on it that call seaweed, then gauze it over. After 2 weeks I was down to every second day of having the dressing cleaned. After 3 weeks, it had healed over, but I still had a gauze over it because my underware line would catch and start to pull at it. I would suggest to you to be put under and have it cleaned out properly, because the chances of it reoccuring are minimal..they believe mine are reoccuring is because of the hemmeroids and once that is fixed, I should never have them back. Good luck to everyone out their that suffers from these horrendous, embarrassing things, I do really feel your pain.