I want to start by saying how invaluable this website is and how grateful I am for itâ�?�?s existence. So whoever is responsible, thank you. I could write a novel (and probably will) about how long I have been dealing with my Pilonidal Cyst. I wanted to write something long and detailed in the hopes that it will answer as many questions as I had when it started, so that anyone already suffering from it knows, it isnâ�?�?t a â�?�?big dealâ�?. When I was about 20 years old, I noticed some odd pain in the right place for a pilonidal cyst. So I went to a gastroenterologist, someone whom I would expect to know virtually everything there is to know about your rear-end and what can happen to it, who told me I had hemorrhoids. Thatâ�?�?s right, it was diagnosed as hemorrhoids. It still baffles me to this day. I wish my personal research had been better, but based on the diagnosis I thought it must have been external hemorrhoids too. So being my youthfully na�?¯ve, misdiagnosed self I went on managing it. Taking ibuprofen, doing my best to hide the drainage, often bloody, was what I considered my only recourse. No furniture was comfortable and exercising was a nightmare (try doing sit-ups/crunches with one of these things). All I could do was run and being terribly overweight at the time I was able to lose 100 lbs. in spite of it. Either way, I am now 30 years old. A couple months ago, my girlfriend urged me to see a surgeon per her sisterâ�?�?s (who is a physician herself) advice. I didnâ�?�?t know what a colorectal surgeon was until about 8 weeks ago. I went in hoping for something non-invasive in order to alleviate the pain of my â�?�?hemorrhoidsâ�?, and this saint of a doctor was able to properly diagnose it. My sense of relief that there was an end in sight was enormous. I didnâ�?�?t waste any time. Ten days later I was under the knife for a pilonidal cyst excision. The incision was 10cm L x 2cm W x 2cm D. The surgery was truly a breeze. After about a thousand questions and introductions to the other fine folks in the OR, some sedatives and general anesthetic it was as if someone snapped their fingers and I woke up in post-op recovery. Because of the way I was seated they had fed a breathing tube down my throat. When I woke up I could feel it and pulled it out. My foggy post-anesthetic mind told me that I probably shouldnâ�?�?t have done that and actually tried to force it back down! A very kind nurse ran over and prevented me from doing it luckily. The surgery was performed on a Monday. The first couple days of recovery were very easy. They sent Percocet home with me, 5mg tablets, and they seemed to work well. Although later on that dosage was not high enough. The surgeon injected the area with a numbing agent that lasted a couple days, and I will get to the point when that wore off soon. I was fortunate enough to have a home care nurse come and perform the dressing changes. Her first visit was the day after surgery when a normal dressing was put in. The second visit a wound vacuum was connected to the wound. She custom cuts a sterile sponge to fit the wound first. Then essentially what this device does (and for speed of recovery I highly recommend it but as far as comfort level it is a bit of a pain) is create a negative pressure on the wound and continuously drain it into a container at the end of a tube. It is the size of a small purse and you must take it with you everywhere. My nurse says it essentially accomplishes the same thing as would changing your bandages and re-dressing the wound every ten minutes. It also gently pulls up on the base of the wound and forces it to close up faster. It is a godsend. Although it does make quite a bit of noise and stinks of something awful at times, which can be difficult for your significant other (as I found out the hard way). Day 4 is when things started to go south. All the anesthetic had worn off, including the numbing agent. I woke up that day with a migraine headache and extreme nausea. I would recommend if you have any problem taking pain pills, ask for some anti-nausea medication to go with it. This helped me immediately. One week post surgery, the nurse was concerned with the level of blood that drained into the vacuum container so I went in for an earlier-than-normal post-op follow up with the Doctor. She prescribed me a stronger dosage of Percocet (she recommended 20 mg to take one hour before dressing changes for the pain. This is A LOT of Percocet so use cautiously. You may feel like a zombie if in a similar situation). She also applied some silver nitrate, which stung like hell but also helps shape and speed up the healing of the wound by cauterizing it, as is my understanding. Everyone said it was a â�?�?million dollar woundâ�?, but the hospital must keep that money or something because I still havenâ�?�?t seen a nickel of that million dollars 😉 The next 5 weeks involved basically the same thing day in and day out. Lots of laying on my side, managing my pain with the pills, managing bowel regularity due to the side effects of the pain pills (which is entirely different story within itself) 3 nurse visits a week accompanied by 3 dressing changes. Make sure you take some pain pills before these dressing changes, especially if you have a wound vac. They will help greatly as the dressing changes were pretty hellish from a pain perspective. But again, the wound vacuum increases your overall healing time by several weeks and helps prevent infection. Make sure you eat lots of protein! Milk, meats, cheeses and even extra protein powder shakes. Your body direly needs enough protein to heal. Otherwise you will be waiting forever. It has now been almost six weeks since the surgery and I am starting to get back to normal. Sitting up for long periods of time is still quite uncomfortable and I am not back to work full-time yet (this is another area where I am fortunate to be able to take this amount of time off although I have been working from home when I can) but the end is certainly in sight. I have many times noticed that the discomfort of the nearly-healed wound is far more comfortable than when the cyst was present. Which is amazing to think that an open wound can actually be more comfortable, but gives me hope for what life will be like once it is fully healed. I will try to post a follow-up once I get back to full strength. I hope this was helpful and thank you for reading! Good luck!