Jeep Disease: A disease that jeeps get? No, it’s humans who get it…

There is a strange disease that causes redness, swelling, heat, and pain in the sacrum, which is the tip of the coccyx. Sometimes it breaks and oozes pus. If you do a small operation to make a cut and drain the pus, these symptoms can be relieved. However, the wound can heal, and after a while it may break again and ooze pus repeatedly.

Always discharge pus? It sounds like the symptom of anal fistula, but this location is far from the anus, so it is definitely not related to anal fistula. So what is it? The answer is pilonidal sinus, or pilonidal cyst. As the name suggests, this disease is related to "hair", "pilonidal cyst", so why does it hide hair in this location? Let me tell you another name for this disease: Jeep disease.

The reason for this name is that it is said that when American soldiers were fighting, they often rode in jeeps. Because the jeeps were always shaking, the hair on the sacrum and coccyx became a problem. It should have grown outwards, but now it grows inwards and can cause infection. Some doctors thought it made sense, so they named this disease "jeep disease."

Image source: pixabay

In fact, the medical community is not particularly unified about how this disease came about. However, the theory of hair growth is indeed the mainstream view. Since it is a disease caused by hair growth, and people, regardless of gender, age or age, have hair on their bodies, people of any age and gender may get this disease, and the incidence rate is higher for young men who are relatively fat.

So, how to treat it once it is discovered? You must think that infectious diseases require antibiotics. That is correct, but it is not comprehensive. When an abscess forms in the acute stage, it must be incised and drained to let the pus flow out. Antibiotics alone are not enough.

What should we do if we want to completely solve the pilonidal sinus? Complete surgical excision. Although this disease is not serious, it is difficult to completely eradicate it. The larger the area of ​​the excision, the larger the wound surface, the more painful it is, and there is no guarantee that it will never recur. Therefore, when excising, it is better to preserve normal tissue as much as possible.

There is a big difficulty in doing surgery at the sacrum, which is the tip of our coccyx. The tissue at this location is relatively dense. What does that mean? Touch your belly. Is it very elastic? If you cut a piece of skin here, the surrounding tissue is very elastic, and it is easier to heal after suturing. But the tip of the coccyx does not have such good elasticity. If you cut a piece, the incision will have a lot of tension and will not heal easily.

In order to solve this problem, surgeons have come up with many ways. For example, making the incision into a "Z" shape, or sewing a tension-reducing line, all of which are to reduce tension as much as possible. In addition to these methods, the skills of surgeons have also improved over the years, and they are very imaginative. Some doctors have proposed that we can continue to use negative pressure suction here? After the operation, whether there is exudation or infection, it can be sucked out by negative pressure suction, and the wound inside will of course be easier to heal. Moreover, if a negative pressure state is maintained in the surgical incision, it will not easily rupture. As the wound gradually heals, the doctor will gradually adjust the negative pressure and pull the drainage tube out a little bit every once in a while. The position of the tube becomes shallower and shallower, and the cavity inside will naturally become smaller and smaller, so that a more ideal surgical effect can be achieved.

Finally, let me give you a brief summary. If hair grows inward at the tip of our coccyx, it may cause infection. This thing is called pilonidal sinus or pilonidal cyst, also known as Jeep disease. Because of the infection, this place will swell and hurt. If this happens, you must go to the hospital for treatment. Through surgery, you can still achieve a relatively ideal treatment effect.

The article is produced by Science Popularization China-Starry Sky Project (Creation and Cultivation). Please indicate the source when reprinting.

Author: Sun Yifei, Director of the Medical Education History Research Office, Hebei Medical University

Reviewer: Chen Gang, deputy chief physician, Peking Union Medical College Hospital