I'm new to this too but my doctor referred me to see a surgeon . I went the other day and she said that my case isn't that bad yet so she wants to hold off on the surgery. She Explained to me what it entails and what she explained was ,they take out a huge section of the armpit and attach it to your arm and you would have to go through a couple months of rehabilitation for the arm. Now i don't know if that's just for really really bad cases where there is multiple ones in armpit. But right now im being referred to a dermatologist for sweat glands that works with hs patients. And do antibiotics for long term and maybe injections? im waiting to hear back within a couple of days. My case is 4 cysts in one armpit.

I hear that the surgery....really the recovery process, is long and painful. Besides the pain, it is the length of the recovery time that is so hard for some people....you're talking at least 6 weeks....maybe longer.

The doc will tell you whether or not to take antibiotics before surgery. I know if an area is infected they usually will not operate like that because of risk of blood poisoning / spreading the infection. I bet they will put you on antibiotics first.

Just starting on antibiotics will make you feel better. They will drain and the drainage will eventually become almost clear as the infection clears. The pain should decrease a lot to.

You must have a very high pain tolerance because I saw your pics and OUCH! I have a boil coming up under my arm and it is like a whole new dimension of pain. I am probably just used to the pain in the other areas. I raise my arm a little and it hurts....i lay down on that side and it explodes in pain!

Anyway, good luck with your doc visit...enjoyed our convo. earlier!

Take the antibiotic!!!!! Believe me IF you have an infection, that infection is MUCH harder on your baby than the medication that your doctor.. who KNOWS you are pregnant.. prescribed you! He said it was safe to take, then take it!! You are NOT doing either one of you a favor by not following doctors orders.
Now that said, I would meet with a plastic surgeon and form a game plan with him/her about a possible surgery. Get him/her to look you over and see what they think and take it from there. Your right arm pit looks much worse to me that you left.. I think it was your right in the picture. Anyway, I had surgery and while it is painful and the recovery is hard and long it is well worth it if it stops the HS in that area. The pain relief alone is worth everything I own!! There is NO guarantee that HS will not return to that same area.. one of mine did.. others did NOT. There is also no guarantee that HS will not spread to your breasts, groin or other areas of your body and likely in time it will.. regardless of the surgery or not. Having the surgery is something that you, your husband and doctor need to discuss and think about.. get a second or even a third opinion if you want to.. just to make sure that surgery is your best bet before going through it. It hurts like a mofo.. but the HS hurts 10x worse if you ask me. Once you are healed you can enjoy days without pain, whereas with HS flares everyday is painful and seems never ending.

Thanks for the replies!

see what scares me is the "rehabilitation" part.. i have a 1 yr old and soon a newborn, i think im guna have to wait on the surgery for longer then i wanted to :(

dust bucket- its funny u say i must have a high tolerance for pain lol im such a P for pain u have no idea! i seriously dont know how ive been dealing with this with no antibiotics or pain meds..... i have problems lol

rebeccaV- im guna start taking my antibiotics cuz it makes sense what ur sayin and the last thing i want is for my unborn chilid to be suffering inside of me cuz of my lack of attention to my issues!

thanks all for ur advice!

dont do surgery, never do it.

Why do u say never do it?

The scars, the pain, the long recovery and the fact that there is a great chance that HS will develop back in the same area and other area's. Also most surgeons are not experts at this very specific type of surgery.

Surgery does not attack the cause of HS.

The decision to have surgery should be made on an individual basis, each person is different. While your HS may not be as bad as the next persons and may not ever warrant surgery.. the fact is that surgery IS needed and appreciated in those of us who suffer horribly from constant drainage, odor, pain and flares. I highly reccomend surgery for relief.. even though one of my areas DID return, other areas did NOT and I was given a relief of pain that I simply can not formulate into words. The area that DID return is not even close to as bad as it was before the surgery, and although it has come back it is more tolerable to me, although heartbreaking...I so wished for it to never return. Even knowing that there was NO guarantee of it returning I went into surgery knowing in my heart and soul that I was doing my personal best to improve my life and my degree of living, and it did improve it. Those were odds that I gladly took, on the slim chance that I would be able to have a more "normal" life.
You speak of the scars.. let me itierate here that the scars from ALL of my surgeries combined do not even compare to one area of scarring that I have incured from HS. There is simply no comparison. The scars from the surgery were crafted by a highly trained plastic surgeon who had the hands of God guiding him, because while they are unattractive to some, they look beautiful to me compared to the before surgery look. I would take scars like these everywhere instead of those reddish purple bumpy gross looking things, that drained and smelled constantly, that I had before. You speak of pain.. lol.. yes the surgery is painful, but once you recover from the surgery it is heavenly to be able to go through a day not ready to pull your hair out or jump off the roof because of pain. The pain from the surgery fades more and more each day until one day you wake up and can actually look forward to the day without a ton of pain medication making you feel hollow while not quite masking the pain.. something that I had indured for years.
And while you say the "long recovery".. even if it takes you 3 MONTHS to recover from the surgery, you WILL recover.. you will NEVER recover from HS... it will continue to get worse!
Surgery is NOT for everyone.. but it IS desperately needed for some.

oh, and while "surgery does not attack the cause of HS".. NOTHING attacks the cause of HS. There is no cure, no reliable treatment and no relief. Surgery may not attack the cause of HS, but it sure as heck attacks the cause of pain and makes life worth living.

You are not being objective.

The first sentence you wrote is the most important one (with which i agree fully), however, unconsciously later in your post you advertise surgery. I'm happy it provided you some relief though.

You have no idea how bad my HS is, or how severe it is in specific area's. I almost had surgery since it was advised by a dermatologist, but I'm happy I didn't do it. There are some many other alternatives. It should be done only when everything else failed.

Also, it is important to note that surgery in specific cases IS needed. But you have to keep in mind that there are area's such as the groin where surgery is much more efficient, while surgery in the butt and other places can provoke undesirable results.

I think we live in a free society: people do what they want as long as they do not violate my freedom. But i just hope that people who do surgery, do it with AWARENESS.

You have no idea how many, especially young people (that woman has HS since 2007 not since 20 years of something like that like many of you), have done surgery and later regretted it because they weren't aware of the psychological and physical consequences.

Peace.

Just FYI... in almost every case of HS drainage that was cultured, the drainage was found to be sterile, meaning it is not infectious. Don't worry about the harm to your unborn baby. I just had a baby a month ago and my HS flared up more than it ever had (and I am already a stage 3). Never once was there any infection and my baby was not harmed in any way. I just don't want you to be scared about that unnecessarily.

I am not disagreeing with you, I merely want to convey that surgery is helpful to many Hs sufferers be it the last choice or not, it does help some.. but like everything we have all tried, nothing helps everyone. I too believe surgery should be considered on an individual basis and should be done only if it will bring the greatest relief as there is no guarantee that HS will not return to that same area. It is not advisable for all, some never leave stage 1 and wouldn't think of surgery while others torpedo to stage 3 and desperately seek it.

say NO to surgery!!! i've had 2 operations for HS, LONG RECOVERY and they all came back! i had my armpits sliced AND sweat glans removed... then you have to wear these drainage tubes called "jackson pratt tubes" and you have to monitor how much fluid drains out and dump them... i had my surgeries about 5 or 6 years ago and though it helped for about 6 to 8 months, HS came back and worse than ever!! after that i got them under my arms SO bad, the open wounds would not heal... in my opinion IT'S JUST NOT WORTH IT!! you're gonna have scars because of the HS, why have more from the surgery, knowing theres a possibility that they'll come back?