Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin condition. Disease severity is classified and assessed by clinicians using the Hurley Staging system from I- III. This ranges from a solitary nodule like in Hurley stage I to the deeprooted nodules, abscesses, skin tunnels or fibrotic scar tissue found in Hurley stage III. This condition primarily affects intertriginous areas such as axillary, groin, perianal, perineal and inframammary regions, with women affected more than men. The age of onset is around puberty.
According to the British Association of Dermatologists (2018) guidelines on HS, initial management involves providing dressings for pus producing lesions. However, there are no guidelines for HS wound management. The impact of this condition on patient’s quality of life makes even the simplest of tasks much more challenging. This reiterates what research has stated about the negative psychological effect on a patient’s life with HS. Wound management should be tailored to each patient individually. As with HS there is no such thing as “one size fits all”. Every opportunity should be taken in the clinical setting to discuss wound care options. My clinical experience has given me an indepth insight into living with the condition and the impact it has on a person and their family such as psychosocial and financial burden. An example of the financial impact on one patient was devastating as she missed working days due to her HS flares in axilla. This affected her driving to work, resulting in financial loss. The dressings she was using would not stay in place while driving the manual car. An opportunity arose to change her car to an automatic and this had a positive impact for her as it meant the dressings stayed in place on her work commute and resulted in less time off work.
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