I’ve had about five or six flare ups in about as many years.
My first one happened the first week of Christmas vacation during my freshman year of college. I blame the many hours of studying while sitting in the uncomfortable chair in my dorm room. I had no idea what was going on. After a bit of googling, I found information on pilonidal abscesses and realized that HAD to be what it was. The first one was the most painful. When it got to the point of being too painful to sit, I called my general practitioner to schedule an appointment. The earliest opening they had was for a few days later, so I went to an urgent clinic instead.
I remember having to lie down in the backseat face down while my boyfriend drove on what had to be the bumpiest road in the world. When I arrived, I had to wait over three hours to be seen. I could not handle the chairs in the waiting room, so I spent the whole three hours lying in the car. When it was finally my turn, I told the doctor what I thought was going on. She took a look and agreed. Even though she seemed to have an idea of what a pilonidal abscess was, we were both completely floored by the smell.
After doing a very basic job of cleaning it out, she taped some gauze to my butt cheeks and then told me it wasn’t a pilonidal. She was concerned by the smell and told me that it was something with my colon or something rerouting and I may have a second anus. This is all honestly hilarious to me now, but I started crying. I paid my bill, received a prescription, and went to the ER. After waiting a few more hours, I spoke to another doctor who finally put my mind to rest. He told me she was completely wrong. It was just a run of the mill pilonidal abscess. He was upset by her prescription and wrote me a new one. He drained everything a little better, gave me some care tips, and sent me on my happy way. I spent the next week taking at least four scalding showers a day and taping menstrual pads to the backs of my underwear. I thought it was all over, but as we all know that was just the first one.
The next fall I got that pain in the tailbone, upper butt area that I tried to convince myself was only a bruise. Before I could deal with that, I had a dental appointment to deal with a tooth that needed a root canal. I was given some antibiotics and the pilonidal swelling went away. The third time it happened, I was a thousand miles from home at a convention for students and professionals. I had been completely fine, but something about the plane ride in, maybe the seats or maybe the dramatic change in air pressure(?), caused it to come back with a vengeance. Where it had taken over a week to come to a head the first time, I had to have it lanced on the second day. I woke up on the second day of the conference, that I luckily attended with my boyfriend since I would have been mortified to tell anyone else of my problem, and had him check it out. He said it was very swollen and had a black circular area with a white spot in it.
We sent the rest of our student group (two other people) ahead and tried to get a plan together. I found a doctor that would accept my insurance, but I was convinced we could do something to relieve the pressure before taking a long taxi ride to his clinic. With the hot water from the hotel coffeepot, some hotel washcloths, and the needle from a sewing kit I had bought at the airport, we lanced the abscess. My boyfriend told me that the second he pricked it, it was like there was a pump just steadily pushing it (blood, pus, and all that nasty stuff) all out in huge quantities. I took the longest shower of my life, giggling with relief the whole time, and then improvised a gauze pad with some scissors and another washcloth (all of which were thrown away, so don’t worry about them being unwittingly used by another guest).
The only doctor I found who was able to accept my insurance just so happened to have had a few pilonidal abscesses himself as a young man. He was impressed with the job my boyfriend did with the lancing. He wrote a pain pill and antibiotic prescription and sent me on my way again, but after his curious and very sympathetic nurse/secretary had a peek at it too. I was too embarrassed afterwards to come clean about my mysterious doctor’s visit to the other members of our student group, so I told them I broke a tooth and needed to see a dentist.
They still think I was lying down across chairs during conference speeches because I was a jerk and not because I had a horrible little abscess at the top of my butt. Then a couple months later, a new one popped up. Home lancing and a doctor’s visit and I was good again. Then only about 6 weeks later, ANOTHER one came back. That was the absolute worst one, but I think I’ve gotten the point across and another story might be overkill. (2009 was a horrible year for me and my pilonidal, haha.)
Since then I haven’t had a problem … until now. I’m currently writing this on my stomach, in between looking for tips on home lancing to refresh my memory. I have the same very handy, if not-so-eager boyfriend to assist/do all of it for me, but no insurance to go to the doctor afterwards, so I hope all goes well. 🙂