I am 26 years old and got my first pilonidal back in February. It started with the area around my tailbone itching, At first I attributed it to dry skin and thought nothing of it. Over the next couple of days, it started getting more irritating. About a week after this started I was in unbearable pain. My brother had a pilonidal (had 3 lancing��?s and 3 surgeries) so I knew a little bit about this going into it. I went to see a general surgeon and at first when I went in he gave me antibiotics told me to give it 2-3 days and everything should go away. 2 days later the abscess had obviously grown in size and after going back in and crying to this surgeon, he finally lanced it. I had to pack it for about a week. Packing the wound is excruciatingly painful. I was back to work in a week after this. I was referred to a colorectal surgeon. After watching my brother go through this, I wanted to get the cyst removed because I knew it was inevitable that I would have a reoccurrence. I got a wide excision with flap closure. After the surgery, things seemed to be going well and then I woke up in a severe amount of pain one day. I went to go see my surgeon and I had developed a seroma (a pocket of fluid) . I had that drained and was told it shouldn��?t come back. After 6 weeks, the wound had not healed, so I started seeing a wound specialist. The seroma had created a tunneling wound, so I started seeing a wound center 3x/week to get it cleaned/packed and after doing this for about 3 months, and the wound not getting smaller, I decided to look into what else could be done. I was referred to 2 different plastic surgeons, one of them wanting to give me a wound vac for about six weeks. I am a chef and carrying a wound vac with me was not an option. I had already taken a lot of time off from work and had used up all of my sick time. I finally found this website and read everyone��?s story. I live in Virginia, but I decided to go see Dr. Howard Caplan in Exton, Pa. He is great. I had a cleft lift about 10 weeks ago. I have to say the 48 hours following the surgery were the most painful of my life, but after that things healed quickly. Although there is some sensitivity, I was basically back to normal after a month. I was back to a full-time schedule and working out again. I see that some people spend years dealing with problem (I know my brother did) and I thanks to this site, I am done with this whole ordeal after six months(knock on wood). I am very happy that I got the cleft lift, even though I had to take more time off work. I HIGHLY recommend Dr. Caplan. He is a great surgeon.