I had my pilonidal for several years before I found this website in my attempt to deal with the problem once and for all.
Through this site, I discovered the “cleft lift” proceedure as pioneered by Dr. John Bascom of Oregon. I decided to call Dr. Bascom, and he referred me to San Francisco based surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Sternberg who had been educated by Dr. Bascom as to how to perform the procedure.
I had the procedure and haven’t had any problems since! I’ve never had major surgery before, so I was a little unnerved by the whole process, which included a spinal anesthetic. I ended up having a drainage tube connected to the area for about a week after the procedure. Though inconvenient, it certainly beat having to do packing changes. The aftercare was pretty minimal, and in a few weeks I was back to normal.
I still have a little discomfort in the area where the abscess was if I put direct pressure on it, but that’s nothing compared to having a perpetually infected chronic abscess!
If you’re in the area, I highly suggest you check Dr. Sternberg out.
– GB