This is awesome. So glad you went. We need to get the word out to all HS sufferers to stop taking antibiotics. They kill your immune system. Which you need to be working well especially if you have HS.

Yay!!! I'm so happy to hear about your success!

However, and I know it's a quote, but you *do* realize that a sentence that starts with "cause is unknown" and ends with "cause is ____" does try to sound a little dicey at first glance? :-)

People with HS also have the problem that bacteria ARE frequently detected (because frankly NO used swab should be thought to be sterile, right?), but caregivers often proceed to be confused when this happens and they find organisms that ordinarily live on people's skin ("commensal" microbes), so they aren't sure if what they find are innocent by-standers, or troublemakers. Sometimes they don't even bother to name them or even mention them if they don't consider them significant - hence "sterile" swabs.

Still may be the remote chance of something involved in HS that is still beyond our ability to culture in the lab, also. I'm trying not to get into that because why complicate things more, but one HS researcher I admire does seem to have suggested something along those lines of the possible involvement of such "fastidious" organism. (I usually use "microbes" instead of "bacteria" when talking about HS because I'm not sure that a role for viruses has been ruled out entirely either).

I'm not thrilled about submitting to antibiotics myself, not even the kind of regimen from the French studies that I think is so miraculous against HS, so I'm presently trying to avoid them... but I still insist that if they'll bother to find out for once what they're trying to kill before they start lobbing prescriptions, just maybe they can get antibiotics to work on this someday as I definitely have infection involved at this stage. I still don't know of anyone with HS who got a decent bacteriological work-up that wasn't part of a published study.

Even if microbes are involved, I think there may be some prospects of alternative anti-microbials that could be friendlier than many antibiotics - I wouldn't be surprised if there are six or eight right in my spice rack - it's just that with that too, it's going to be important to know what you're aiming at so you can find something that should work, as well as finding something that's strong enough to work at a safe dosage.

I don't know what will happen with it, but I'm going to try to look into this business about HS being auto-immune. It certainly could be, but I cling onto my suspicions that at least in some cases, we may be seeing auto-immune reactions because the antibody for a certain microbe also recognizes (cross-reacts with) certain substances in food, possibly lectins which are blamed in some of the Paleo lit for reaction to nightshades.

I'm not sure offhand how that might come about, but possibly if a microbe was wearing a particular lectin when antibodies were being produced, that antibodies against lectins instead of against the microbe could have been produced???

That's trying to make more sense to me at least than the way the Paleo page seemed to explain it (lectins + leaky gut = lectin antibodies?), which still leaves me confused why I shouldn't get antibodies to everything that was in the salad along with the tomato and its lectin.

So today I am trying to see if I can learn to match the lectin that is in someone's HS trigger, with microbes it's likely to stick to, and just see how long the idea will keep making sense or not (since that seems way easier to me than getting into how antibodies are made, and I still can't find anything that will give me a flat-out yes or no if lectin antibodies can come from microbes wearing them as fashion accessories).

At least what I'm hoping/praying here is that someday we can figure out how to resolve HS to the point that nobody has to go on all these avoidance diets to keep from having flare-ups, and for the sake of the prospect of trigger-free lives I'll happy to make a fool of myself like this anytime. :-)

This is true that as far as I know, *I used to have a trigger-free life*. Then came the HS, and then came the triggers. I used to partake sometimes heavily of the very same things that I'm so incredibly sensitive to now, some were beneficial instead of harmful before which seems to be more how some of them work in healthy people generally. I would certainly like that back... and let's have a round of it for the house too, I hope.

Okay... and now, more research!!! :-)

Hey!!

(Yes lol in response HS is fun lol, im totally kidding but I love your sense of humor.)

If you are still looking for something to treat your boil or boils in the future, you can try Ubiquity Box. It has DRASTICALLY changed my life. I would never give you false hope, EVER. That is probably one of the worst parts of having the condition, everyone claims they have the answer. Then, then the answer never works (Im referring to doctors, not the people who are here trying to help)

For the first time in my life, people complimented me on my skin. I didn't have boils between my legs or under my arms. My entire life changed. I had a moderate to severe case of HS but I literally can't use any other soap! I ran out of soap one week, and my symptoms came back SO BAD that I had to rush order another Ubiquity Box. The owner has HS and created the regimen herself, which is great because there is first hand experience for our condition.

Ubiquity box is a skin care regimen (soap, astringent, oil, and scented oil) that has SEVERELY reduced my HS symptoms. It has helped with skin discoloration, reduced the presence of cysts, and changed the quality of my skin.

I hope you will try this and your life will be changed like how my life has SEVERELY changed.

Here is the link to get it: www.ubiquitybox.bigcartel.com