Hello, my name is Dave. I recently discovered this forum after hearing about a guy on reddit claiming he had his butt sewn shut due to cysts.
So I did a search for it and found this forum too. My story began like so many other in my late teen during high school. I think I was in a PE class, sitting on the grass when I first felt a bump near my tailbone and like so many others I thought I’d injured or bruised it somehow. When I got home, I ran my finger over the area and felt a bump, figuring it would go away. It did go away or maybe it was out of mind and I never experienced the pain that many have described here.
This was probably around the mid 90’s. Jump ahead to the early 2000’s. One evening while getting ready for bed, I take off my underwear, tidy whities, or in this case not so tidy, and I notice a massive stain of blood and dark in the back. Panicked, I run to the bathroom to see, because I hadn’t felt any pain, and notice a grape sized lump on the upper left natal cleft. I just thought, ‘what the F is that’, and thought back to the initial inflammation in high school.
So once again I figure it will just pass, more hoping than figuring. For the time, I could live with it. Two or three years pass and I’m in a job that has medical benefits and not a moment too soon. The lump had stayed the size of a grape, but it was persistent, I was spared the horror story of the golfball or tennis ball sized cyst, but still it was an annoyance.
Finally one day, I was watching a DVD at a friends place and noticed that I couldn’t sit normal anymore. So I tell my dad about it, he took a look and opined that it might be a boil. I seek out a doctor and he actually knew what it was, I think this lone fact saved me a lot the turmoil that others seem to go through. He tried to lance it, without anesthetic and though I have a high pain tolerance, he see me squirming and hear me groan. He said it was no use and recommend three weeks of cyst baths to loosen it up.
After three weeks I visited him again an he said the lump was softer, but still suggested surgery. I don’t believe this site was around back then, I didn’t even bother to look it up on the net, which was probably for the better. I can see how reading these horror stories can deter people from surgery. The specialist took a look and confirmed the diagnosis and scheduled an outpatient procedure. I had no idea what was going to be done. I figured they’d just removed the tissue in question and I’ll be on my way. There was no mention of the procedure or recovery. This was to be my first major surgery and there was no looking back, before going to the pre op for blood work and IV, I stood in front of the mirror, the same mirror in which I first discovered this pain the ass and told myself that the doctor will help me and make me better.
The procedure was done under general anesthesia, I remember chatting with the medical staff and then waking up in the recovery room. I don’t know how long it took, but I remember feeling no pain and having a pad on my backside. I didn’t have the open wound, the sides of my cleft were just sewn together, so now I have a scar where my crack used to be. I think I was back at work after 4 weeks and although I had painkillers I only used two of them because they made me drowsy and I wanted to enjoy my time off. In retrospect, I think it was early detection and action that avoided the worst of it and I’d recommend to anyone in the early stages to get the procedure done.
From what I recall, mine was on cyst with a channel running down along the centerline of the cleft and one branching off up to the left. I had this done in about 2004, I believe and have not had a recurrence since.