Hey everyone, I’ve been checking out the forums for a while now and decided to go through with the cleft lift procedure for my pilonidal. My surgery went very well, only lasted about an hour and half. I had the procedure done in Pittsburgh, PA by Dr. Matthew Rosengart. He is very experienced with pilonidal care and knew actually what I needed.
Now a little background on my pilonidal. I remember at 17 when some signs that I had a pilonidal first started to occur. I would have blood/pus in my underwear, but being young I didn’t really think anything of it. From reading the forums it seems that most people have pilonidal’s really bad or that it imposes on one’s life significantly. Honestly being 22 now, for the past 5 years my cyst has been more of an annoyance, but never inhibited me from doing strenuous activities or even sitting. Anyway during these five years I would get flare ups, where the cyst would be the size of a golf ball just above my Intergluteal cleft. Yet for me I always had a permanent sinus tract which would drain, however this tract was located in the top of my intergluteal cleft. I am also a hairy guy, so whenever I would shower I noticed the build up of hair in the tract. For me, my flare ups would happen maybe twice a year, then for a long time I didn’t have anything happen for a year.
In the past six months or so I decided to research my cyst after having another flare up and came across this forum/website. With my career as a professional musician I knew that it would be better to have this taken care of now than to wait for it to possibly get worse later in life. February 2013 I met with Dr. Matthew Rosengart at UPMC in Pittsburgh, PA. He took a look at my cyst and tract and said that the best thing for me would be a cleft lift procedure since I had no pits thus ruling out pit picking. And the fact that my sinus tract was in my intergluteal cleft (but away from my anus). So I scheduled my surgery for March 21st (yesterday) 2013 and just waited till then. Like I said in the beginning, the surgery went well. The doctors used general anesthesia on me so I only remember taking the relaxing medicine in prepping room, don’t even remember going into the operating room.
Went in at 6:15AM, and since I was there a little early they pushed my surgery earlier which was great. I think I went in at 8:15, and when I woke up it was 10:20, so I was knocked out about two hours. I had no severe pain when waking up, no throbbing pain, no nausea, just a sore throat from the breathing tube they use for general anesthesia. And if anyone is a singer, I would recommend telling them because they can use a smaller tube to insert for your breathing and also give you more medicine so to protect your vocal chords for damage. So I was wheeled back to the outpatient room once I was fully awake, and just hung out for while with my parents. Then the nurse came in to explain how to maintain my drain, which is a tube coming out of my bandages and into a ball chamber. I have to pour out the accumulated blood once in the morning and once at night, also measure how much blood has been drained. Since yesterday (the surgery) I have drained about 20 cc’s of blood. Pain wise, it’s nothing terrible, just a lot of soreness. I am cautious of sitting down normally and putting all the pressure on my wound, so I am leaning forward while I sit and putting most of the weight under my thighs.
Other than soreness I have no major problems. Bending down is hard, I just use my arms for support and get on my knees to pick stuff up. Taking long strides in my walk is difficult, probably because it pulls the wound, so I only take short small steps. I haven’t gone number 2 in the bathroom yet, and I’m not sure how I will with the tape and bandages on me currently, but urinating is fine (don’t worry about it being difficult after surgery because the general anesthesia shuts down your bodies systems). Laying down is not too bad. I had a great nights sleep too. Main thing I did was either lay on my stomach or on my back. Laying on my side doesn’t hurt, its the movement of getting there which hurts. Other than this I’ll keep you all updated on my condition. So many of your stories helped me decide to have this done so it’s the least I could do by letting others know. Plus it’ll be interesting because I didn’t read anyone who had a “minor” case like mine. Also for people concerned with financing this operation, I’ll try to keep you updated on what happens there too. I have Highmark BlueCross PPO which was accepted by Dr. Rosengart at UPMC.
Have a great day everyone and let me know if you have any questions. This post is in the forum too under “Just had a Cleft Lift procedure for my Pilonidal – my story and updates”