Many people are diagnosed with incurable diseases everyday. Some of those diseases, such as asthma, are manageable with the right treatment while others - like cancer - can be fatal. There are also many lesser known ailments that are incurable and not life threatening but cause a great deal of pain on a daily basis. I happen to be one of the "lucky" ones diagnosed with an incurable condition that isn't life-threatening, but can be debilitating once it progresses to a certain stage. Writing tends to be therapeutic for me and I wanted to share with my closest friends what I go through and how it's affected me.
A couple years ago, I was diagnosed with Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS). HS is a skin disease that causes boils and abscesses to form in areas where hair grows and/or where skin rubs together. It is unknown what causes the disorder and there is no cure for it. It's most commonly found in the armpits, groin, and buttocks but can occur in many locations on the body. It is a disease that is more prevalent in women and those persons who have a history of acne. The disease occurs in 3 stages and get progressively worse as the sufferer moves to each stage. Some people never progress pass the 1st or 2nd stages while others can quickly hit the 3rd stage. In the 1st stage, large boils appear in the folds of the skin. In the 2nd stage, the boils harden and seep fluid worse than in the 1st stage. During the final stage, tunnels form around and in between the boils and scarring occurs. The pain is at its worst in this stage. This ends your crash course on HS. You can always google it to learn more.
I've actually been an HS sufferer since I was in high school. It started out as a boil on my tailbone that didn't re-occur very often. While in college, they began occurring in my armpits but I didn't get them a lot. Over the last couple years, they've turned into harden lumps under the skin that sometimes would come to a head but many times they didn't. Over the last 3-4 months, my condition has worsened and I'm almost always in pain. I'm not really sure what triggered the on-going flare ups but I can't seem to stop them. The longest break I had was 3 weeks and then the flare ups were back. I'm not really sure what stage I'm in but I'm pretty sure I'm past the 1st stage of the disease. I do know that this is some of the worst pain I've ever experienced and many days, all I want to do is lay in bed. I've joined a support group and visited a lot of other sites targeted at HS and have noticed that some people are actually on disability due to the disease. It scares me to think that later in life that could be me - in so much pain on a constant basis that I'm bedridden. What kind of life is that for anyone? I'm not really a person that cries much but the pain I've been in and the wondering of "why me?" has made me tear up on numerous occasions lately. I pray that a doctor can help me find a way to make it go into remission or that I can find a natural way to do so. I wouldn't wish this kind of pain on anyone.
