Very sorry to hear that you have this problem too, Daenerys.
Today I read a bit more on this, because unfortunately, although the new changes on the diet are doing great things to Atreides (he's never had so much energy in his life!), very recently he started having some recurrent issues with HS. He will soon go for the "glue" surgery, but some new ones have appeared, and we are worried that they might develop fistulas if nothing is done soon. Cold baths seem to help, and so does keeping the affected areas dry, but everything we've tried has only worked for making the symptoms less painful, NOT removing the problem.
So, I found a specialist in France. There is a pretty good blog (all in French, unfortunately) here: http://www.afrh.fr/la_maladie_de_verneuil_ou_h/
So, here is a hypothesis. Apologies if it sounds too simple or silly, but FWIW, it did give us some hope:
The "disease" (which is NOT a disease but a consequence of the aquatic ape evolution, IMO) has to do with the clogging up and over production of keratin around the follicles, and secreted by the aprocrine glands. Ok. These glands seem totally useless today, if you ask me. Their only purpose is to produce pheromones, and sweat (but we sweat through millions of skin glands all around the body).
In studies where surgery was required (and notice that surgery
is considered to be the most effective "cure" - WARNING: do not visit that link if you are sensitive to looking at pictures of serious cases of this condition), what I'm seeing is that the trick was to make an incision deep enough so that
the aprocrine glands got removed with it. They also talk about cutting a wider area in case there are tiny pockets of infection around, which could, I think, be explained by the fact that since these glands are located in clusters, the bigger the incision, the greater the chance of removing all glands.
I was reading in several forums that people who got the glands removed together with their abscess never got a recurrence.
However, I can't find one single paper where they talk about removing the apocrine glands as a preventive measure against HS. But it IS done in cases of
Bromhidrosis and Hyperhydrose (excessive sweat and odor). The interesting thing is that for those types of conditions, they described
permanent treatments involving
the removal of the apocrine glands! Either by big incisions or through liposuction.
What caught my attention the most was the possibility of having a
"Tumescent liposuction" done:
http://dermnetnz.org/procedures/liposuction.html
It involves local anesthesia, a much faster healing time (1-3 weeks), smaller wounds, and less pain.
Another possibility suggested by this French doctor is to have a surgery with a bigger incision, and then helping the healing with a hyperbaric chamber, which reduces to healing time to approximately 3 weeks instead of the usual 8-12 weeks. I am still hoping that something like the liposuction would be doable, since it sounds much less complex and certainly less traumatic.
There seems to be a third option, using laser therapy, but I haven't read enough about it.
Anyway, I REALLY don't know enough about this, but will be making some phone calls tomorrow to see if this doctor has any more suggestions. She claims that many surgeons can perform the surgery, since it is the same as for any kind of abscess. But a milder option would be ideal.
It really is irritating and sad to see how useless the medical system is, except for the mechanical part. Come on! The problem involves a specific type of gland, but "there is no treatment" until an infection has formed? Unless I'm missing something major here, it's not rocket science, people! You just remove the cause. In this particular case, there doesn't seem to be any side effect from not having these glands.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
And I wanted to say to all those who suffer from this that although I can't really imagine what it feels like, I sincerely hope that together, we can find a solution. It might be better to do all you can now, while there are still possibilities to have a surgery done if needed. We don't know what things will be like in the future. So, "keeping things at bay" might be OK if your problem is not severe, but perhaps looking for a more definite solution would save you a lot of suffering later?
Big
to all.