Do Cellulitis and HS Go Hand in Hand?!

By Joey Torre

1 min read

Hello beautiful people! In this video, I speak about my recent unpleasant visit to an urgent care clinic because of cellulitis. Please let me know if this or something similar has ever happened to you and what are steps you take to prevent this from reoccurring. Thank you!

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Sisubee Member
First off, thank you for sharing your story. Sorry that your experience with that specific doctor wasn’t the greatest. The only solution I’ve found in the past (2008-2014 when I was stage-3 )was a great and understanding dermatologist who gave me advance antibiotic prescriptions for flare-ups. Ones that I could take for two-three weeks when a I could tell things were getting bad. Personally, I find when I HS gets bad that I’m prone to cellulitis. You can also try over the counter antibacterial body washes. They also sometimes help. They won’t make the HS better but maybe they can help with proactively preventing cellulitis. I also find that I always get infections whenever I have surgical operations. No matter how clean I keep the wounds - infection and trouble healing every time. I actually heard that some doctors recommend antibiotics in advance of procedures (even dental work) for people with lupus and other autoimmune conditions. Going to ask about that in the future. One thing I think that a lot of us chronic health conditions share is we hate going to seek treatment. We’ve met so many doctors and other medical professionals that odds are we have some bad experiences. When you’re already vulnerable the last thing you want is to have to advocate for yourself or justify things. I’ve had HS since I was 10, diagnosed at 12 and stage 3 by my mid-teens. I’ve had doctors who never heard of it. I’ve had doctors, like the one you met this time, who explain (sometimes in a patronizing way) their opinions on this condition. Or, I’ve had bad doctors who blame other things on HS and don’t provide appropriate treatment. Another story for another time but I was right, they were wrong and I ended up in critical care for a week.
CommunityMember809 Member
YOUR POWERFUL WORDS TO TOUCH MANY LIVES AS IT TOUCHES MINE !
1. Joey Torre Member
 <inline-mention username="CommunityMember809" user-id="4839996"/> ty 💜
Chelsea Freund Member
Apologies, one correction: "vesicle" should be "blood vessel."
Chelsea Freund Member
Hey, <inline-mention username="Joey Torre" user-id="4164657"/>! I've had cellulitis before. So I'm going to give this from my perspective as a patient and as someone who went through school to be an RN. Cellulitis is a separate condition and not a person's destiny, exactly. We don't automatically get it just because we have HS. However, there are reasons that people tend to develop it more often, and that's because their cells are less stable, or their systems (like tissues and vesicle walls) are less stable. Basically the infection invades the tissue so the infection is spread throughout the tissue, rather than being isolated to one spot. That's why medical staff trace an area with marker, to see if the affected area gets any bigger - because they want to see if it's spreading even further. If you got this because it was an HS spot that turned into cellulitis, you got this because it was an HS spot that turned into cellulitis. But maybe you got cellulitis because you had a spot, and maybe it was somehow injured around the spot, and the infection took over. (Obviously I don't know what happened, I am only guessing.) Now, if you have diabetes, either type I or II, it's much easier to develop cellulitis after some sort of trauma because there are many issues with circulation. But the bottom line is, you don't get cellulitis NOT related to an HS lesion just because you have HS. (At least, that is the current knowledge.) I hope that makes sense. ~Chelsea (Team Member)
1. Joey Torre Member
 <inline-mention username="Chelsea Freund" user-id="2400429"/> thank you for your response. This makes such much more sense then how the medical provider had explained it to me! I understand HS and Cellulitis doesn’t have a direct connection, but doesn’t it make it more likely for me to get a skin infection like cellulitis because I have HS? Because i wonder if I didn’t have HS would I keep getting Cellulites? This has happened to me more than once. Moreover, I’m just curious because as you know, HS is unpredictable and I’m just trying to get a better understanding of the illness.But thank you for taking time to give me your logical perspective on my situation. Your answer has helped me have a better understanding 💜
2. Chelsea Freund Member
 <inline-mention username="Joey Torre" user-id="4164657"/> As far as the frequency goes, if you think about it, we have infections all day, every day. We have pools of bacteria all over, more so than people without HS. We don't list cellulitis as a comorbidity because it's not a chronic disease, but thanks to these constant lesions filled with millions of bacteria, we do have to deal with cellulitis from time to time. Sometimes the bacteria win. But when you were talking about this particular round of cellulitis, I didn't recall you explaining that it started with an HS lesion. So knowing that it's not a chronic condition, we kinda just have to go with it was some sort of injury to the skin that turned into cellulitis. If it gives you any comfort, technology doubles every 18 months; maybe in our lifetimes we will know a lot more about this than we do at this point in time. 😀
Iammzannie Member
Good job never thought about this I do believe there is a link 😉