An ex-army officer was left bedridden for more than a year due to a debilitating skin condition triggered by an ingrown hair inbetween his buttocks.
Dylan Conway, from Queensland, Australia, had nine surgeries and spent 14 months in bed due to reoccurring pilonidal sinus disease — when a hole forms near the back passage.
The charity founder said his life ground to a halt when he woke up one day with lower back pain while serving as an infantry officer in the Australian army.
‘From day one, I strove to be the fittest guy there. So, things like running and working out were a huge component of my life,’ he told ABC Science in 2022.
‘I remember waking up one morning and just feeling immense pressure on my lower spine. That’s when I had my first surgery.
‘I still had the mindset that I’d finish the surgery and then get straight back into training. However, it’s not how it played out at all.’
The condition – caused by an ingrown hair ‘puncturing’ the skin – ended up leaving Mr Conway unable to sit down, see his friends or family he was in so much pain.
Pilonidal sinus is a small hole at the top of the bottom which can become inflamed and infected, according to the NHS.
Dylan Conway, from Queensland , Australia, (pictured talking to ABC Science in 2022) had nine surgeries and spent 14 months in bed due to reoccurring pilonidal sinus disease
The charity founder explained his life ground to a halt when he woke up one day with lower back pain while serving as an infantry officer in the Australian army. He eventually had surgery to remove the infected area
Most people do not realise there’s a problem until they start experiencing pain, discomfort when sitting, or a small, swollen pus-filled red lump.
The condition is often caused by friction in the intimate area that causes hair between the buttocks to be pushed inwards, making them ‘ingrown’.
The problem is more common in men because they tend to be hairier.
‘With pilonidal sinus disease, hair will fall into your pants and your buttocks rubbing against itself will actually implant hair into your body,’ Mr Conway said.
‘If you zoom in on a microscope with the hair, it looks similar to a screw. And eventually the friction from walking will end up embedding that hair follicle into your skin,’ he explained.
He went on to explain that his pilonidal sinus disease is ‘reoccurring’ and continues to torment him putting an end to his career in the army.
‘A lot of people will go through this and feel all the symptoms. You know tightness in their lower back, pain while sitting down and they won’t even realise or think to get it checked and it can end up leading to an infection occurring in the lower back,’ Mr Conway said.
During surgery doctors remove the pilonidal sinus and in some cases the infected tissue around it.
But plastic surgery is also an option if the area being treated is particularly large, according to the NHS.
The infection ended up leaving Mr Conway unable to sit down, see his friends or family he was in so much pain
Recalling his first surgery when he was 19, he said: ‘I turned around and there was this huge chunk of flesh that had been taken out of my body it was sort of like getting hit by a car. I just woke up one day and I had this disease .’
But he was dealt another blow when that particular surgery didn’t work and he had to go through the operation again.
‘Each time I would go in to have another surgery not knowing what I’d wake up to and see,’ he said.
‘I went from being this really confident young man who was very confident in his body image to all of a sudden you can’t sit down, you can’t walk, I couldn’t socialise with my friends. I couldn’t see my family, couldn’t live life, to be completely honest with you.’
To help bring some perspective to his life, Mr Conway started reading about others who had endured and overcome severe hardships.
Soon, reading became an obsession and he started to fly through books between hospital appointments.
That’s when he decided to launch his own charity in 2020, called BrothersNBooks. He has since created a series of community libraries in hospitals and veteran centres.
Although Mr Conway still lives with the skin disease and has been left with scars, he has a new perspective on life.
He said: ‘Most recently I have had the top of my butt completely cut off, and I have a large scar that runs from my lower back all the way down. I’m uncaring about what it looks like, I’m just happy that I can get outside again and start walking and see my friends.’
He added: ‘I hope that speaking about this publicly, when someone’s going through this in the future, when they Google the disease, it actually comes up with something where they can see someone else that’s been through it.
‘Just to let people know that they’re not alone.’
