I wanted to add my story as I was nervous for my surgery, but everything turned out successful. I feel great to have the pilonidal cyst removed and found this website to be very informative, and it helped put me at ease throughout the whole process.
My pilonidal cyst existed for about 5 years before I elected to have the surgery. It was both embarrassing and annoying (especially after moving in with my girlfriend!) I never wore light colored clothes. The surgery took place on a Thursday morning. The procedure the surgeon used was an open marsupialization. For anyone who is going into surgery, here is my account and suggestions:
a) It is very helpful to have someone with you at the hospital and stay with you for the rest of the day, and if you live alone for two or three days, to help the first few times you change your surgical bandages;
b) have the person with you at the hospital listen to the surgeon or nurse’s instructions on how to change the bandages as you will be a little out of it after surgery;
c) the person helping change bandages should be prepared for what the wound will look like – it is not pretty for a few weeks. My girlfriend almost passed out the first time she saw it.
I was prescribed painkillers – hydro-codeine or something related– but I did not take any. I do not like the side effects of narcotics and consider myself pretty pain tolerant. Plus you cannot mix them with alcohol, and I preferred a couple whiskeys instead (as you can see I’m not a doctor). For the first two weeks or so, the wound is quite painful. You have just had a chunk of flesh removed from your body, and that’s exactly what it feels like. If you ever wonder what it feels like to have a gunshot wound, this is your chance! I don’t want to scare anyone however – if it is too much pain for you to bear, the painkillers will be a big help.
Changing the bandages for weeks will become a huge nuisance. You need to think positive: your body is healing; the wound is getting smaller; the pain is getting less every day. I will say, and you will experience this, that sitting for long periods of time is difficult. For a while I could only sit for about an hour before getting up and moving around. I could not lay on my back for about 4 weeks, I had to sleep on my side – that was difficult as I have always preferred to fall asleep on my back. My hips actually got kind of sore from laying on my side all the time.
Again, stay positive! Find some books you have wanted to read, get some movies. Finally you have an excuse to lay on the couch all the time! I did run into one problem. After about three weeks I was pretty comfortable changing the bandages every morning and night. One morning I took out the gauze maybe too forcefully and the wound started bleeding. A small amount of blood can look like a lot and it is kind of scary to see yourself bleeding. Also the bleeding happened three mornings in a row. I recommend having an additional absorbent pad nearby in case you need to press it against the wound if bleeding starts. I got checked out and was told it was nothing to worry about unless of course the bleeding doesn’t stop.
Aside from those three days, the problem did not happen again. It is also helpful to soak the gauze inside the wound in the shower before removing it, as it will be gentler on the wound this way. Finally after about 6 or 7 weeks the wound was almost fully healed and noticeably much smaller than it was after surgery. The only discomfort was a little bit of itchiness around the edges where new skin was growing in.
After about 8 weeks it was fully healed and became a scar. The post-surgery care is not easy, but it is also manageable. For me, two months of wound care was well worth not having the pilonidal cyst again.
Best of luck to anyone going into surgery – stay positive!