I’m 18 and from Seattle, Washington. When we went on lock-down in March of 2020, I began to sit for hours at a time, studying, reading, and eventually Zoom schooling. I first realized that something was wrong when I developed a painful swelling just above my buttock crack. I figured that it was from allContinue reading “Living with an open wound since early in the pandemic”
Draining a pilonidal abscess (I&D) should be in the bag of tricks of any emergency room, urgent care doctor, or surgeon. But the practice is very variable, and many patients have unsatisfactory experiences. Here are the main issues, and I will say this is somewhat controversial as while I feel that I am promoting well-established best practices,Continue reading “Draining a Pilonidal Abscess: Controversies and Best Practices”
Many surgeons choose to treat pilonidal patients with disfiguring, wide-excisional operations hoping to completely remove the elusive cyst. The problem is that many of these radical operations for pilonidal disease: 1) often don’t work and can lead to a recurrence as they fail to shallow the cleft, eliminate dead space under the skin surface, andContinue reading “I am on a mission to educate patients and the surgical community”
It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks! And it’s a challenge to get surgeons to change the way they treat a particular condition after residency training. Surgeons are trained by their mentors to do things in a certain way. Most are wedded to that way. Change is difficult and many surgeons are cautious in adopting new surgicalContinue reading “How do we Teach Proper Pilonidal Surgery Technique? “
Few surgeons truly have a desire or interest in taking care of pilonidal patients and many of their operations make the problem worse. Not everyone should be performing the cleft lift. It is technically demanding, requires good three-dimensional planning, and adequate patience to meticulously perform the operation. So, if the surgeon you’re consulting withContinue reading “How do you know if a surgeon is a pilonidal expert?”
During my training as a general and colon and rectal surgeon, I was complicit in many poorly planned and executed operations for pilonidal disease. Patients would come to the operating room with a symptomatic but small appearing problem, and they would leave with a huge hole in their backside. In the resident clinic I would see theseContinue reading “Surgeons, please partner with me in changing the way we treat pilonidal disease.”
This has been a difficult eight months for all of us. The time has been particularly challenging for patients with Pilonidal Disease, particularly those who must to travel outside of their local medical community to find a surgeon who can provide proper treatment. Finding a Seasoned Surgeon There are just a few surgeons who performContinue reading “Patient Prep: Traveling to San Francisco for Pilonidal care during COVID-19”
If you spend hours sitting in front of a computer monitor or TV screen playing video games, you’re at risk of developing a common pain in your butt better known in the medical community as Pilonidal Disease (aka Pilonidal Cyst). Patients suffering from Pilonidal Disease can experience on and off discomfort, swelling, and sometimes evenContinue reading “I’m a gamer! Why does my butt hurt so bad?”