My story begins about 1 year ago, I was 34 at the time. I can remember feeling something at the top of my butt crack when I was in the shower. At the time I had mild discomfort, but I thought that maybe it was a pimple or something.
By the next day, the pain and inflamantion got worse. I was now having trouble sitting without pain, and even had difficulty walking comfortably. My wife, who is a nurse, inspected for me and advised that there was significant swelling/redness in the area. She invesigated and told me that it was likely a pilonidal cyst. I started to use a hot compress at this time which I found helped with the pain, I also would take advil but it didn’t do much. By day 3 I was in the most pain I had ever experienced. I have had knee surgery, dislocated shoulders and some serious burns, but nothing was as painful as the cyst. I couldn’t sit, walk or lie down without being in some sort of pain.
Day 4 came and the pain that I thought could not get worse…did. It now hurt to even wear underware over the cyst, so it was time for a trip to my doctor. Upon examinatiion the doc told me that he could not lance the cyst yet as it was not ready. I was sent on my way with antibiotics and T3’s and told to continue with the hot compress. Later that day I started to get a fever either from the cyst or the pain. The T3’s didn’t touch the pain I was in and I actually found that 2 extra strengh liquid advil were more effective. I didn’t sleep at all that night as I couldn’t get comfortable enough to numb the pain.
Spent the night on the couch with a hot compress lying on my side. Day 5 went much the same as day 4…lots of pain and they cyst wasn’t getting any smaller. I planned on returning to the doctor on day 6 to demand some sort of treatment as I just could’t deal with it anymore. At about 11pm that night, I got an emergency call from work and I had to go in. It took me 10 minutes to even get into my car the pain was so bad. I finally made it there and limped my way into work. I told everybody that I hurt my back as I was too embarassed to tell them about the cyst on my ass.
About 3 hours in, I felt dampness in the area and went to the washroom to invesigate. Sure enough the cyst had burts and pus and blood started to run out of it like a fawcet. I couldn’t believe the amount of liquid that drained from the cyst. I made do with some rolled up toilet paper in my underware and was able to sneak out of work and head home. Once there the drainage continued, but the pain had lessened dramatically.
It took about a month for the cyst/abcess to finally heal. All the while drainage continued on an off. I’ve been cyst free for almost a year now, and I take extra care to clean this area and keep it free from hair. That’s an experience that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
The best advice I can give to anyone is to make sure you express to your doctor the amount of pain you are in and don’t let him just sluff you off. Or even better, see a specialist if you can. I think that I suffered way more than I had too.