Breaking Stigmas, Curing Pain

For Randy Poulin, living with a pilonidal cyst was like carrying a secret burden. Like many patients with this condition, he felt a discomfort that would come and go, and simple activities became challenging.

“It was kind of random,” recalls Randy, now a Bowen Island businessman who manages his family’s distillery and development projects. “I would have periods of discomfort, sitting down or playing sports, and then it would go away.”

That changed five years ago when Randy, then 30 and with a newborn daughter, suffered a severe infection from the cyst in the buttocks region. It had grown to the size of a golf ball, he says.

“I could barely walk because it was causing so much discomfort,” he says.

His search for treatment led him to Langley Memorial Hospital (LMH) surgeon Dr. Scott Cowie, part of a group of medical professionals who have become known for their expertise in treating the condition.

LMH was one of the first hospitals in North America to introduce “video-enabled ablation,” a minimally invasive surgical technique that uses video guidance to remove or destroy infected tissue. The addition of this new state-of-the-art surgery enhances LMH’s capacity to provide advanced treatment.

Thanks to donor generosity toward the purchase of new scopes, surgeons like Dr. Cowie can see with precision “exactly where we’re going and make sure we obliterate the disease,” he says.

The new scopes for the video-led procedure give Dr. Cowie a clear view of soft tissue, allowing him to make the procedure as minimally invasive as possible.

“What surprises me about pilonidal disease is its prevalence,” adds Dr. Cowie. “It affects people mostly in their young adulthood, during their formative years when they’re just becoming economically and socially active.”

Though it’s prevalent in the youth demographic, the condition carries a stigma. “I try to stress to patients that it has nothing to do with hygiene,” Dr. Cowie says. “It’s more of an anatomic variation in how the gluteal cleft forms.”

The pioneering technique allowed Randy to only need one day off for rest. “I was able to go back to work pretty much right away,” he recalls.