I have the misfortune of having a pylonidal cyst which most of the time is very quiet. However, occaisionally it acts up and causes pain I can’t even begin to describe. I usually suffer for a few days before breaking down and going to the ER or dr. to have it drained. Yummy. I’ve had some drs say I should have it removed, and others say just leave it, keep it clean and do what I have been. The surgery from what I understand will keep me off my feet for 5-7 days and there is a 50% chance of it returning. Has anyone here had the surgery? How’d it go? Does anyone know more about this than I do. I don’t want to suffer with it anymore, but I don’t want to have it back once I get rid of it.
I assume you mean this? Just checking, because the ‘y’ might be a misspelling, or a different condition for all I know.
Sounds like a real pain in the… well, nevermind.
I have had one of those at the top of my butt crack. The surgery was easy and I wasn’t off my feet for even a day.
Note: A friend of my sister had one and the doctor did the surgery without anesthetic because it was infected and the local anesthetic wouldn’t work. Bad idea. My doc gave me a killer antiobiotic for two weeks and everything went fine. It was in his office, I was awake, and the worst part was when he insisted on showing it to me.
That was at least a decade ago and it hasn’t returned. One suggestion the doc made was to Nair my butt crack, but I haven’t kept up on that.
So, for me, it was easy peasy and hasn’t returned.
Both my husband and my son have had the pilonidal cyst removal. My son was off his feet for maybe 2 days (he’s in the military) and stayed out of work for a week only because he has unlimited sick days. Ditto when my husband had his out. Both had bad flareups of infection. My husband took anitbiotics and waited for his to burst and drain. (25 years ago). My son had his surgically drained, took the antibiotics and then had the removal.
Neither of them has had any trouble since.
Good luck, DrLovegun. I’m sure some people here would like to know if they find anything particularly interesting in there.
I have a pilonidal cyst. Most of the time, it isn’t there. I think last year it only flared up twice. I’ve read as much as I can on the subject, and I think I’d rather avoid having it cut out, on the off-chance that it could come back anyway. That would have been a piece of my butt that I’d never get back. It’s active now but not doing anything. I can’t get it to leak, it’s just being slightly annoying. If this is about as much as it’s going to do, I think I can live with it. In keep the area clean, and hope for the best. Usually, I have no problem from it.
Sorry, typo above. Please read: “I keep the area clean…”
Here’s a thread from a few months back about it.
Mine flared up and didn’t go away until surgery. And yes, I had to have a student health services nurse repack it twice daily for many weeks, which wasn’t fun or convenient. But then, I kinda sorta wanted to be able to sit down during class, so I suppose it was a good trade-off.
By the way, my surgery was over ten years ago, and nothing has come back. YMMV.
See the thread that drewbert linked to for good info.
Keep in mind that just lancing a pilonidal cyst to drain the infection is not the same as removing the pilonidal cyst. I do the former procedure in my office to defuse an acute infection and acute pain, but I leave the latter operation for a general surgeon or similar, as it involves a lot of excavating.
If your cyst is chronically troublesome and recurring, you could consult a general surgeon to discuss more permanent solutions.
I had one removed back in '79. I was in hospital for 3 days, not much pain but it was a bit tender to sit on for a week or so. And so far it has not come back.
I had one removed in 1989, at age 21. It was done during winter break my senior year in college, with the idea that I could have surgery just after Christmas, and be more-or-less healed by the time the semester started.
From the sounds of things, I had a different experience than most. My surgery was done on an in-patient basis (I think I was in the hospital for 2-3 days), with a spinal block for anesthetic. I remember getting the spinal (which didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought), and then watching 2-3 drops of something go in the IV. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital room.
I was instructed to lie flat (not raise my head above the level of my feet) for some period of time, I think 12 hours. I made sure I was well past that, but then experienced blinding headaches if I was vertical for more than 5-10 minutes. Gradually this subsided, but it was a good two to three weeks before I could function normally again.
The cyst itself has not recurred, and I don’t recall any inordinate amount of pain during the healing process; just discomfort. The headaches, though - wow did they suck! Never experienced anything like it.
My mother tells me she had the same thing happen after she got a spinal during delivery of either me or my sister. Maybe it just runs in the family. Or maybe we draw the bad anesthesiologists.
Wow-I didn’t think we’d all have these stories to tell about out bums. Mine bothered me on a periodical basis from late teens through early twenties and would occasionally leak, concurrent with when it was most painful. One evening upon retiring to bed it gave me some fits and upon going into the bathroom, in a moment of anger at this alter-being above my buttcrack gave it a firm grasp with thumb and first knuckle of finger and bore down. I could feel the rush of fluid into my hand-a combination of blood and pus. After several more cycles of same, I put a hot compress on the spot and expressed it again-repeating the process until there was nothing else to push out. It has never bothered me since.
Aren’t you all glad you opened this thread? Alternate title: When Doper Butts Go Bad-TMI 
Let’s just get it done, sweetie. I never want to help you drain it while 7 months pregnant and nauseous again. Not that we’re having another baby any time soon.
I had mine removed on school break in '76 and had a pretty bad infection from it. Unfortunately it came back almost 20 years later with a vengence and had to be removed AGAIN. More pain this time as an outpatient but less infection.
The worst part? After 2 surgeries and some delightful scars I can be referred to as ‘Frankenbutt’.
You’re the doctor and I’m not going to contradict you. I can only tell what I recall. IIRC, I did have a surgeon do the procedure but it wasn’t in a full-blown hospital operating room. It was really just like being in the surgeon’s office. I do think he took the damn thing out rather than just lancing it.
Maybe a key element is the quality of the surgeon…
You probably had the thing removed in the surgeon’s office then. Either way, it’s still a relatively minor procedure. Just more definitive when the cyst is taken out.
All this has me wondering…
I periodically get a really tender spot right at the top of my buttcrack, right over my tailbone. Sometimes it will split open and have ever so slight bleeding, and it hurts like mad when I wash it. I soak a tissue with alcohol and wedge it in there, that hurts something fierce.
No swelling, no “drainage” per se, more like a tear in the skin (I guess, I’ve never tried to position a mirror to have a look)
Do you think this is one of the dreaded PCs trying to gain a foothold?
I had mine removed, and was initially off my feet for a day or two. The scar then got infected, and I was off my feet for two weeks. That sucked.
From the discriptions I have something related but not the same.
To begin with, it is in the lower left quadrant of my back not in my butt crack. It swells like a cyst, but there is absolutely no pain as a matter of fact I would not know it was swollen if my wife would not occassionally mention it. This sounds like what the website above calls a sinus especially when you take into consideration that there is a terrible smell that comes out when it is drained (and it is not liquid it is a thin hard string-like discharge). But once again, the site above says if it swells (which it definitely does to a very good size) it can’t be a sinus.
Any ideas? I don’t want to hyjack, but I didn’t even know the terms until this thread.
Just to update on that one, my brother is all healed up again, although because of the depth of his cyst and the size of his “crater” after the surgery, it took him 6 full months of gauze-packing before the wound healed all the way up to the surface. According to him, the worst part was the tape being ripped off day after day.
He was fully functional about 2 weeks after the surgery, but couldn’t stay sitting on a hard chair for long, or do anything extremely strenuous. Of course, my brother is a big guy, and his cyst was enormous. A small one would probably be a much easier surgery. Good luck, whatever you end up doing!