Hello all….my story began my senior year of highschool with my first cyst appearing below and to the right of my tailbone. I didn’t think much of it and let it go. I was an athlete, playing hockey and lacrosse my whole life. Well it began to drain towards the end of my senior year but had no pain so again i left it be. Was on track to head 8 hours away from home in the fall to go to college on a lacrosse scholarship. I ended up heading out there in the fall and had no issues with the previous cyst, which was still apparent and had flare ups from time to time but nothing serious. Midway through the fall of my senior year i fell on my tailbone area hard in a practice. I noticed a red area begin to swell and overtime (2 months) another cyst, this one much bigger formed. It drained A LOT. I again ignored this and kept it to myself. I lived with these two cysts or abscesses for the next 3 years. I became used to life with them and they didnt cause a tremendous amount of pain unless there was a bad flare up, which did occur every few months. But they did seem to constantly drain all the time which got old real quick. When i finished school this past december and graduated, i began to feel some serious lower back pain almost to the point where when i woke up, i couldnt even put on my socks. This was extremely alarming. I noticed that one of the cysts was also flaring up very bad and it hurt. I decided to go to my regular doc to finally show him my issue after keeping it a secret for 4.5 yrs. He immediately recognized them as pilonidal cysts. I was sent to see a surgeon who did a lot of colo-rectal procedures in the area. When he took a look he was shocked. Not only did i have these two cysts but i had multiple pilonidal sinus tracks in the middle of these two. I was sent to have surgery 5 days later. They ended up removing so much infected tissue i currently have a wound the size of a softball back there. They had to cut down to the bone on one side as the infected tissue and channels were pressing against my nerves and causing back and leg pain. So as i type this laying on my side i have a hole that’s 2.5 inches deep, 8 inches across and 6 inches wide that is packed deep. I have to go to the surgeons office everyday for re-dressing of the wound and will be getting a wound VAC next week to speed up healing. If you notice something wrong, ACT IMMEDIATELY. While my healing time is only 6-8 weeks for it to completely closed, i will have a massive scar the rest of my life. On the plus side, since so much tissue was removed, the chance for reoccurence is below 5%. This is a serious issue and you should not keep it to yourself. I have a strict diet laid out and take specific supplements to accelerate healing and can’t do much except lay around until i move past the first phase of healing. Here’s to hoping things get better soon.