I wanted to share the story of my most recent flare up, which actually just "resolved" today. By resolved, I mean that I've moved past the excruciating, debilitating pain phase, and in to the vile, smelly, messy "recovery" phase that feels both disgusting and so, so wonderful at the same time.  I actually discovered this group 2 days, (or I should say nights), ago, when I was awake in the wee hours of the morning, searching desperately around the internet for something that would make all the pain go away.  I should say right away that after reading the stories of so many sufferers, not just here, but around the internet, I feel so incredibly blessed -- I'm probably a moderate stage 2 given the size and location of my flare ups, (about tennis ball sized or so and around my groin), but I'm extremely fortunate that it's rare for me to have more than 1 or two flare ups a year.  

The reason I decided to post about this one, is because it was this forum that finally, finally has given me some relief from my struggles. I had "heard" that turmeric was some kind of remedy for HS, but frankly I don't have a lot of faith in homeopathy in general, and given the amount of snake oil and BS that's out there about this condition, I was lumping the "turmeric solution" in with all of that...Consequently I never really looked too deeply in to it.

Then, I find this forum and in the midst of my pain-induced lowering of my BS meter -- I did some clicking around. I read the stories of other on here that said that turmeric powder had worked when nothing else had. Intrigued, I did a little more research and discovered that there's actually some real science behind all this.  Between that and my pain at the moment -- I was sold. I sent my wife on an early morning run to the drugstore, and she came back with:

* A box of Epsom Salts

* A small bottle of turmeric powder -- McCormick brand. I'm sure there's better out there for this use, but she got what she could find and I was desperate.

* Some coconut oil and some Vicks vapor rub.

All told, the bill for all this stuff comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of $20. That's the other thing about the turmeric remedy that sold me -- nobody is getting rich claiming that this works. Contrast that to something like Emuaid, which I shelled out $60 for, and it turns out it's basically just fancy vaseline as far as the good it does for me. I hesitate to totally trash Emuaid, because I know we all suffer and find relief differently, and Emuaid does contain ingredients that some HS sufferers swear by...point was though, I wasted $60 on something that didn't work. I felt a heck of a lot better dishing out $20.

Anyway...I've seen a lot of posts here to the effect of, "Wow...Turmeric powder totally worked for me!", that was heavy on gratitude and relief, but light on details. I don't blame those posters -- believe me, when I first realized this was working for me, I was downright giddy, which is not an emotion I'm used to having in the middle of a flare up. So, I'm not knocking any of that -- but I wanted to kind of go through my entire process for dealing with this flare up in the hopes that some of my "method" will help someone else.

Tumeric Paste

Given the pain I was in, this was the magic I was interested in. All the discussion I'd read here and elsewhere about turmeric said that the ingestion route for turmeric worked wonders -- but took a while. The descriptions of using turmeric paste seemed more up my alley, so I jumped on it.  Most of the descriptions I've read suggested distilled water or vegetable oil for mixing the paste. I decided to use coconut oil. The basic process was pretty simple...I tossed a bit of coconut oil, some turmeric powder, and a bit of water in to a small bowl and stirred them together until I had a nice "pasty" concoction. I applied it by, (very gently), spreading it thickly and evenly over the affected area with a paper napkin. Depending on your sensitivity level, you might want to go with something a bit softer to spread with.

I'm on the fence a bit as to whether I over-dilluted the turmeric with the coconut oil -- I might have had faster/more dramatic results with a thinner "base", but the bottom line here is this fu**ing worked! Within about an hour of applying the paste, the abcess had shruken down by about 50%, and it didn't hurt any more. I still had to be careful moving, but not as careful. The little bit of discomfort that was left was easily fought off with some tylenol.

I continued to apply this paste twice a day, (coinciding with my baths), for the duration of the breakout, and I can say with absolute certainty that this brought down the swelling and made the whole thing less painful.

Turmeric Ingested

I didn't want to leave anything to chance, so in addition to applying the paste, I also decided to run with the 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric to a glass of water remedy. I dropped in an equal amount of black pepper, because of something to do with bio-availability of somesuch thing...in any case, it's apparently important and I'm sure there are others that understand the science of it better than I do.  This was, frankly, vile, and in the future I'll be looking for ways to make this dose more palatable.  This is especially important since I intend to make turmeric supplements a part of my daily maintainence now. I know I can get capsules as well, so I might just try that, despite the fact that I've heard the water/powder solution is better.

I can't say for absolute certain if it was the paste, the drink, or the combination that did it -- all I know is the result. The result was that not only was my outbreak shorter than any other I've ever had, but the affected area actually looked healthier through the whole process. This evening, after using the combined remedy, my abcess had some to a pretty reasonable head.

I have to admit that after reading some people's descriptions of how well turmeric worked for them, I was half-expecting, (and hoping), that I'd have a draining mess on my hands after just one application. It didn't happen that way for me, and I spent a good deal of time in pretty considerable pain, (even with the swelling reduction, incidental movement will mash/smash and twist your skin in agonizing ways), but I stuck with it. I wasn't willing to give up on the first little bit of hope I'd had for making this condition more bearable.

Once I realized I had a head to the boil to work with, I switched tactics. I started applying Vicks vapor rub, specifically to the area where the head had developed. This stung, a lot. If you try this, just be aware that it isn't a pleasant experience at all. With a decent head developing on my abscess though, I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel way sooner than I expected, and I grit my teeth and struggled through it. At one point it stung so bad I had to take another quick bath, and I think that probably helped things along.  After one more Vick's application, the thing burst on me, and drained in a, (rather disgusting) torrent.

And...that's my story.  I'm willing to answer questions/provide more detail if anyone wants them -- anything I can do to help people with this, I will do.