I am REALLY sorry to hear that you are still in pain!! It seems that you are in more pain now than you were presurgery...... If I may ask. What type were your incisions? Straight or in a Z shape? How long were they and how much skin was taken out?

Again I feel for you..... I have been debating surgery for awhile now and in the past couple of months I've been shying away from it. But the temptation of being pain free is hard to resist. I hope you have a good support system at home!!!!! I think we all feel your pain and flustration

firemedic-
thank you, i defiantly feel worse now then before. i have 1 straight incision on my chest between my breast, and 3 on my groin, on both sides and over the top. all are straight incisions with no skin graphing. all 4 are about 10 inches long. not as much skin was taken out, more just tissue. if your considering it, please do yourself a favor and really look into other treatments first. surgery is not fun. :( i wish you the best of luck.

So your final decision to get the surgery??? Did you have any open wounds or did they take out problem areas? The surgen I talked to is a plastics guy. So I'd hope he would make the sutures not to come open. He wanted to do 3 total, one for my armpits, one for my groin, and finally the last for my back. Pretty sure i'm gonna get the small of my back done. I'm still debating it all. But having three spots popping up tonight make the decision all that more difficult.

I had my first surgery for my hs in 2007 the surgeon I had was great. I had both of my underarms done. There was a little issue with a nicked artery but it was taken care of with no excess hospital time. I went in on a friday he put wound vacs on my arms then the following friday i had skin grafting done the skin graft sight was the most painful. I haven't had a problem with my arms since, the hs did spread to my groin area, and because my insurance changed I had to have a new surgeon lucky for me he trained my other surgeon. I had surgery last friday however this time no skin graft its just open with wet to dry bandaging. So I am hoping for the best and hoping it doesn't spread. I was diagnosed in 03 I am glad I finally had the surgery. My advice would be to have them do one area at a time to allow your body a chance to heal itself.

firemedic-
it wasnt my final deision, thats the problem. i was uneducated as far as this disease and really didnt do any research. my surgeon is also a plastic surgeon, a very prestige's cosmetic guy. he basically took out the most problem areas for the first surgery. and want to cut me up again and i told him no, until i see how this turmeric works. its kind like this, 1 you live with the painfull sores and continue to get scars or you have surgery and get a very larger scars. but just because it didnt work for me doesnt me it wont work for you. i work in health care and am exposed to mrsa, so when my insicions started tearing it was more because of the mrsa infection, not so much that my surgeon didnt do it right. best of luck to you.

mymy-

im really glad to hear that someone had a successful experience with surgery. maybe my problem was that he sutured closed my insicions instead of letting them drain.

I talked to six different surgeons and all of them said the same thing that if they performed the surgeries they wouldn't be closing the wounds that they would have to heal with out stitches they said this was to decrease the possibility of tearing and decrease the the likelihood of giving the disease an area to grow again. They all said this helps keep an area free of returning lumps but not from spreading to other areas thats the bad part.

I had my surgery a month ago (in the armpit) my surgeon also let mine stay open and drain. Its almost totally healed and it feels alot better. Im sorry to hear you are having such a hard time! I hope things get better for you!

I'm really sorry to hear that your surgery went bad. I too have had surgery, twice. Not plastic Surgery, Not Wide excision surgery, just 'general surgery". I was told my HS didn't require wide excision, but he did mention plastic surgery, which I never pursued. After my first surgery, it took a year for it to close. I did everything from covering it, to packing it. 6 months into trying to heal it, he gave me a magic cream. "Silver Sulfadiazine Cream", used on Burn Patients, etc. This is the only thing that has worked for me. 4 months later, my wound opened up again, so I had my second surgery. The second he took the stitches out, it opened up again. So I began with the Silver Cream again, and 6 months later, it closed up. 4 months later, it has begun to open up again...I continue with the cream, it is the only thing that works for me, and if it can give me 4 months of peace and quiet, than I'll take it. I wish you much luck and hope you heal quickly.

I am sorry your surgery went badly. Did they remove sweat glands or just remove the cysts?
I have only had "spot" surgery, opening a paticular cyst cleaning it out, they stuffed it w/ gauze (to asorb any more pus) and later let it close on it's own.
I am about to go and try to get them to do that again cos one cyst just will not go away.

My son had wide area excision of both armpits and down one side on April 3. They removed all tissue down to the muscle. He's so glad he did it. Nearly 2 months in the hospital though. His open areas were covered with Integra artificial skin for a week and then skin grafted over. He also used the wound-vac. He had been bedbound for over a year and a half before the surgery. Out of school for about 2 years (he's 17 now). Last month he returned to school! He still has HS in his groin and butt, and will be having a small surgery in October and a bigger surgery in December on those sites. I am sorry your surgery didn't turn out as well. Surgery was truley a "life returner" for my son.

even though im a man i can totally sympathize with where your new bumps are popping up. mine have recently startet attacking my groin and on some days i cant even walk, i have had several cut open under my arms and the scar tissue has built up so bad that now they say surgery will keep me from useing my arms for two months. i havent wanted to do it, so im going to try acutane again, it worked last time i used it. have you tried it? wish u luck, oh and i like ur funny pic.

Well you guys definitely have me scared out of my mind here! I had surgery on the paraneum area (2 sites) and one on the labia. MY doc stitched me inside and out. Plastic surgeon. BUt I do have the benefit of someone being home 24/7 to take care of me so maybe I won't tear open like you guys did.

Very alarmed by the results I am hearing!

shelldrake- i also had my fiance to care for me, and was bed bound. it was when my incisions were healed is when they started tearing. i remember a you once posted about taking 2 weeks off work, and i think your going to need longer. y doc told me id only be out 5 days, and its been over a month for me, i only went back to work for 1 day.