Pilonidal disease is a chronic skin condition that affects the area of your tailbone, right in the crease of your buttocks. About 70,000 — mostly men, some women, and few children — develop pilonidal disease in the United States every year.
Since most people are a little bit embarrassed about having a buttocks at all, never mind developing an ugly, angry cyst on their crease, they sometimes delay seeing a doctor about their pain. This is a mistake. Colorectal doctors are familiar with pilonidal disease and are able to resolve your pain before you develop more serious complications.
Our expert colorectal physicians at Colon and Rectal Surgeons of Greater Hartford urge you to seek medical care whenever you have pain or discomfort in your buttocks or bowels. At our offices in Bloomfield, South Windsor, and Plainville, Connecticut, we use state-of-the art diagnostics and treatments to resolve your pilonidal disease.
When you have pilonidal disease, is surgery your best option? Sometimes it might be. Here’s when and why.
You didn’t necessarily develop pilonidal disease because you have poor hygiene or don’t wipe properly (although poor hygiene may lead to complications). Pilonidal disease usually starts with an ingrown hair in the crease of your buttocks. In fact, the term pilonidal comes from the Latin roots pilus (i.e., hair) and nidus (i.e., nest).
Men are more likely to develop pilonidal disease than women are, simply because they’re more likely to have hairs in their buttocks area. They’re also more likely to have coarse hairs between their buttocks; coarser hairs are more prone to becoming ingrown.
An ingrown hair is a hair that’s trapped under your skin. It can cause irritation, infection, and a whole lot of hurt.
If you feel discomfort in your buttocks area, or tenderness at the top of and between your cheeks, you may be inclined to ignore it. Maybe you think you just wiped too hard, or you have a little pimple. Early symptoms are easy to dismiss:
Sometimes, if the cyst is small enough, it goes away on its own. More often, when you ignore pilonidal disease, it gets worse. Complications include the development of an abscess, which is an infected cyst that may leak pus.
Over time, pilonidal disease may create sinuses underneath the cyst. The sinuses are cavities under the skin that connect to the outer skin through little pits. These sinuses can expand to create large areas of inflammation and pain.
As with all conditions, the sooner you seek medical care, the better your prognosis is and the easier treatment will be. Therapy depends on the extent of your disease.
If you have an abscess, we incise the cyst to drain the pus, using local anesthetic to keep you comfortable. If you have significant inflammation, we may give you topical antibiotics. We also recommend using depilatories, once your skin has healed, to prevent subsequent ingrown hairs in that area.
If you’ve had more than one abscess, or if you’ve developed sinuses as part of your disease, surgery may be your best option. In this case, we “unroof” the sinuses with an incision on top of the affected area.
We then remove the entire length of inflamed tissue, including the sinuses that lead to the pits in your skin. Removing all areas of inflammation leads to the best prognosis, although it may need a longer healing period.
Once you’ve recovered from your procedure, you must maintain the area around your tailbone and buttocks’ crease in order to prevent another cyst or abscess. Always keep it clean and free of hair.
Use a depilatory every 2-3 weeks to remove hairs. In addition to wiping thoroughly and bathing daily, you might consider using a bidet to clean yourself after wiping, too.
Don’t dismiss that bump on your buttocks. Find out if you have pilonidal disease that needs to be resolved before it causes complications: Call our helpful team at the office nearest you (Bloomfield, South Windsor, or Plainville, Connecticut), or schedule an appointment online today.
