Hi all, I did a lot of reading here prior to my procedure and I am so thankful for people sharing their experiences so I knew what to expect. I had my Pilonidal cyst appear after cycling, I had previous issues but this pain was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I thought I had broken my tailbone and spend hundreds of dollars seeking an answer from doctors - including a trip to an ER that was unhelpful. At my wonderful mother’s suggestion, I began soaking in Epsom salts and one evening after that, I noticed I was wet from leakage - I DID have a cyst and it was draining! It was disgusting, and most definitely infected. I couldn’t believe how much fluid was being expelled from my body. I booked an appointment for the next day, but I immediately started feeling relief. Believe me when I tell you, I must have had a massive cyst with tons of infected fluid near the base of my spine.
The doctor looked and said I didn’t have a traditional lump, and she could only tell anything was happening by pressing some of the gunk out. She referred me to a surgeon. A couple of days later I saw him and he said I barely had any noticeable cyst, but he squeezed more liquid out, which hurt. He said the drainage was in itself curative and said before I had the GIPS procedure, he’d prefer it to drain out.
I went in this morning and it went pretty well. He started out by taping my cheeks open and then located the sinus openings - I had three tiny holes vertically on my tailbone very close together. He started probing them to identify the tracts but it quickly became painful, so local anesthesia was used. Then he proceeded to do the procedure, cutting one larger hole to capture all three openings. He said I had a large cyst above that which was causing all the pain. He cleaned it out and then cauterized it with silver nitrate. It didn’t hurt, but the scraping feeling and pressure was NOT fun! At the end he packed it with gauze and covered that with more gauze. He had me stick around for a couple hours to check for any bleeding.
After the wait and some calming down, it was really scary because I’ve never had a surgery and my family lives very far away, he checked it out and said the bleeding was completely appropriate and looked great. In the office, he said I should remove the packing in 24 hours in the shower and clean it. He originally instructed me to repack once per day. I told him this was going to be hard since I live alone and had no one to help me. He then reconsidered and said I wouldn’t need to repack the wound, but to just keep it covered with gauze and change it as needed, with warm showers daily. I have a follow up in a week.
The expected healing time is a few weeks according to him. That’s longer than I anticipated, and I’m really nervous to have an open wound that I can’t see for so long! The anesthesia has worn off and I took a precautionary dose of 800mg ibuprofen as soon as I started feeling pain. It’s nowhere near as painful as my initial cyst, but it is uncomfortable. I just replaced my outer dressing and it had what I perceived to be a normal amount of blood and normal drainage.
My questions:
- have others had a similar experience with GIPS? Is this aftercare plan a good one?
- how long until your wound healed, and did it fix it for you?
- did you have to do any repacking, or are outer dressings good enough?
- am I going to be uncomfortable for a long time? This has been very mentally scary for me
Thank you!
The doctor looked and said I didn’t have a traditional lump, and she could only tell anything was happening by pressing some of the gunk out. She referred me to a surgeon. A couple of days later I saw him and he said I barely had any noticeable cyst, but he squeezed more liquid out, which hurt. He said the drainage was in itself curative and said before I had the GIPS procedure, he’d prefer it to drain out.
I went in this morning and it went pretty well. He started out by taping my cheeks open and then located the sinus openings - I had three tiny holes vertically on my tailbone very close together. He started probing them to identify the tracts but it quickly became painful, so local anesthesia was used. Then he proceeded to do the procedure, cutting one larger hole to capture all three openings. He said I had a large cyst above that which was causing all the pain. He cleaned it out and then cauterized it with silver nitrate. It didn’t hurt, but the scraping feeling and pressure was NOT fun! At the end he packed it with gauze and covered that with more gauze. He had me stick around for a couple hours to check for any bleeding.
After the wait and some calming down, it was really scary because I’ve never had a surgery and my family lives very far away, he checked it out and said the bleeding was completely appropriate and looked great. In the office, he said I should remove the packing in 24 hours in the shower and clean it. He originally instructed me to repack once per day. I told him this was going to be hard since I live alone and had no one to help me. He then reconsidered and said I wouldn’t need to repack the wound, but to just keep it covered with gauze and change it as needed, with warm showers daily. I have a follow up in a week.
The expected healing time is a few weeks according to him. That’s longer than I anticipated, and I’m really nervous to have an open wound that I can’t see for so long! The anesthesia has worn off and I took a precautionary dose of 800mg ibuprofen as soon as I started feeling pain. It’s nowhere near as painful as my initial cyst, but it is uncomfortable. I just replaced my outer dressing and it had what I perceived to be a normal amount of blood and normal drainage.
My questions:
- have others had a similar experience with GIPS? Is this aftercare plan a good one?
- how long until your wound healed, and did it fix it for you?
- did you have to do any repacking, or are outer dressings good enough?
- am I going to be uncomfortable for a long time? This has been very mentally scary for me
Thank you!