pain management/medication options

Hello, , thanks for reaching out. I'm sorry to hear that you're not getting relief from your current flare up. Do you doctors know that the pain is so bad it is interfering with your day-to-day life and causing you to miss college? (Sometimes I don't think doctors get it unless it's put in the terms of how badly it's impacting living your normal life and routine.)

I wish I could be more specifically helpful, but unfortunately I'm not aware of much for over-the-counter pain relief besides the ibuprofen. I do want to share a couple links with you though, maybe something mentioned with resonate with you. This article has information about pain, https://hsdisease.com/symptoms/pain (and includes some pain relief ideas at the end of the article). This article has information on various types of medications that are used to treat HS, https://hsdisease.com/medication. And these two articles have alternative therapies, https://hsdisease.com/alternative-treatment and home remedies, https://hsdisease.com/home-remedies. I'm not sure if there's something mentioned in these last two articles that you haven't already tried and might help ease some of your discomfort, but I wanted to share them with you just in case.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to your doctor (be the squeaky wheel if you need to) in order to get some ideas or prescriptions for pain relief. While getting prescription pain meds isn't easy (and sometimes isn't even always possible), you certainly deserve to be able to go to college and live your life without the discomfort you're currently feeling. Perhaps even seeking out a pain management specialist would be a possibility for you.

And, hopefully some of our community members here can also share any tips or tricks with you that they've found helpful!

Please keep us posted with how you're managing. Sending you gentle hugs. -- Warmly, Christine (Team Member)