It is a painful somewhat gross skin disease for which there is no known cure only ways to manage it. Now keep in mind what I have is considered a mild case but if you are brave enough to google pictures (I would not advise it what so ever!) They can get pretty gruesome pretty fast.
Luckily for me my darling genetics have struck again! So just a little bit of background on what I have going on here with my family history. My Dad's side of the family has the decease of age, like literally all of them live to be well over 90 with little to no medical problems except senility. My Mom's side of the family on the other hand has numerous different types of cancers, some of which are hereditary. She herself has a degenerative eye disease that both my brother, myself, and both my kids had to be tested for, that is slowly making her go blind. (She hasn't been able to see red lights since I was sixteen.) It is almost like a pick your poison kinda thing but up until now I have gotten off scott free!
I started showing symptoms in my early twenties and went to the Dermatologist like you are supposed to do right? That was optimistic at best considering two different Doctors couldn't even figure out why I still had acne and could not get it to clear up even after hundreds of dollars on different creams and potions that were supposed to be a magical cure all. So they told me these bumps were just acne and it would heal and get better with time or an ingrown hair or severe chaffing. Really and truly they had no clue. After the birth of my daughter is got worse, went to a different dermatologist, same thing. "It is just acne, lets try this very expensive cream and it will go away."
I learned to live with it. I learned that tea tree oil helped but after some trial and error also figured out that it eats skin like acid! I became very self conscious and dermablend became my safe haven to be seen in a swim suit! Pretty sure at that point my days of walking around in a skimpy bikini were over. It hurt to walk, run, or pretty much anything that involved moving. The breakouts would hurt so bad that I couldn't do anything but soak in the tub and try not to puke. I started to avoid anything that had to do with a lot of walking but after awhile I started to get used to the pain. I didn't want it to keep me from things that I wanted to do. You can't let it control your life, I know how badly mine hurts and I have seen pictures of people that I am sure cannot walk comfortably or move their arms or their chest.
It wasn't until I was pregnant with my son that my new Doctor (I thank the lord for her, she was by far the best doctor I have ever had!) said "Oh you have HS your poor thing I know that has to hurt." UM EXCUSE ME I HAVE WHAT?!?! Out of now four Dermatologists my OBGYN was the one who knew what it was and explained it to me. I could have feel out of the floor! Years I had no idea what it was or what was causing it and trying to plead my case with my friends explaining that I am not a leper. There I was six months pregnant just balling my eyes out because someone finally told me what was happening to my skin!
As of now I currently have a fantastic Dermatologist that specializes in HS and is working on a treatment plan with me. Granted she explained that it is not curable but it is manageable. I can handle manageable! I will start Humira next week and I will keep everyone updated on how it goes! I would not wish this disease on anyone and I couldn't imagine what having a worse case would be like. For anyone reading this that is also suffering from HS you are not alone and it is not the end of the world even though it does feel like it.
There are a few websites that I used for help understanding so here are a few:
No BS about HS
Daily Strength
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