Navigating Dating and Relationships While Managing Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS)

Understanding HS and Its Impact on Relationships

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a long-term skin condition that causes painful bumps and boils in areas with many oil and sweat glands. It most often develops in the armpits, groin, breasts, and buttocks. HS symptoms like pus-filled lumps, scarring, drainage, and chronic pain can make dating challenging.

Common HS Dating Issues

If you have HS, you may face certain obstacles when putting yourself out there including:

• Discomfort showing skin or being intimate
• Embarrassment about appearance
• Confusion dating partners have about your symptoms
• Fear that HS smell, wounds, or pain will turn off dates
• Concern that HS medical needs will be too much

These worries can make you hesitant to date in the first place. Or they could sabotage promising new relationships if you let HS rule your self-confidence and willingness to open up.

Creating Mutual Understanding

While HS presents very real dating hurdles, overcoming them starts with having open, judgement-free conversations. Here’s how to foster mutual understanding about your condition:

• Educate dates about HS early so they know what to expect
• Communicate sensitively about your pain, treatment, flare-ups
• Encourage questions - this builds trust and compassion
• Explain your specific triggers, symptoms, problem areas
• Provide resources to inform partners further on their own

The right person will make sincere efforts towards empathy about HS once you give them that chance.

Navigating Intimacy and HS Flare-Ups

Being physically intimate with HS takes adaptation, self love, and partners who provide support rather than shame when you experience disease flares.

Intimacy Challenges HS Poses

HS can directly get in the way of enjoyable sex and closeness due to:

• Genital lumps, wounds, scars
• Pain during sex or foreplay
• Leaking pus or blood
• Bandages needing adjustment
• Self consciousness hindering arousal

These physical limitations understandably produce anxiety in the bedroom. But intimate options definitely still exist while managing outbreaks.

Adjusting Sexual Activity During Flares

To work around intimacy issues HS causes, try open-mindedly:

• Avoiding positions that rub or hit wounds
• Letting partners know if something hurts in the moment
• Taking sex slower or taking breaks as required
• Focusing activity on non-affected erogenous areas
• Considering alternate sexual expressions like massage that avoid flare zones

Having to modify lovemaking requires grace from all parties. But in healthy relationships, patients report partners end up fully on board navigating these hurdles together.

Cultivating Comfort and Confidence

You can also nurture more confidence and comfort with intimacy via:

• Using humor to ease tension when flare mishaps occur
• Openly discussing sexual triggers, pain points, preferences
• Respecting times you simply don’t feel amorous
• Prioritizing emotional care alongside any physical activity
• Considering sex therapy or couples counseling to unearth hang-ups

Loving partners should make you feel supported, desirable, patiently accommodated and never defective. This empowers relaxation into sexuality at your own pace.

Disclosing Your HS Condition

Deciding how, when and how much to share about your health with new dates is highly personal. Follow what feels right for your needs.

Conversation Tips

If aiming for authenticity from the start, keep communication tips in mind:

• Bring up HS casually to avoid an awkward reveal later
• Keep it simple early - elaborate as comfort builds over time
• Steer discussion towards resilience and self management vs collecting pity
• Reassure dates you have regimens and support systems in place
• Answer questions honestly but redirect focus back to getting to know each other

Frame HS matter-of-factly as one piece of who you are while showcasing all your other wonderful assets!

When to Tell New Partners

There’s no “right” stage for opening up about health conditions - go by your read of the evolving relationship. For instance:

• Very early if actively dealing with severe flares around dates
• A few casual dates in once intimacy could arise
• Further along only if HS rarely impacts your social abilities

Essentially, disclose HS status when symptoms directly influence the plans or activities a partner would need to understand. Or when a desire for physical closeness builds. Honesty policy is up to your discretion.

Seeking Out Supportive Partners

Not everyone you meet romantically will respond empathetically to chronic illness burdens. Seek those who do by:

Vetting New Love Interests

Pay attention for partners demonstrating traits like:

• Comfort discussing awkward topics
• Willingness to ask questions rather than make assumptions
• Maturity navigating relationships with health impacts
• Compassion about physical and mental distress
• Adaptability rolling with unexpected situations

These markers hint at capacity for handling HS curves life throws. Trust your intuition reading people on early dates and asking probing questions.

Speaking Up About Needs

Clearly voice essential elements that promote your wellbeing like:

• Patience and care during HS flares
• Willingness to adjust social plans when required
• Respect for medical routines and treatments
• Non-judgment about variable symptom days
• Reassurance that intimacy changes don’t lessen desirability

The right partners will embrace these requests and pull closer rather than withdraw. Don’t accept less than full accommodation after stating needs.

Having an HS Dating Plan

Finally, strategize challenges dates could pose ahead, like:

• Deciding where HS impacts fit into early conversations
• Anticipating flare-related pivots dates may require
• Prepping sexual communication if chemistry escalates
• Listing dating activity backups adjustable to health factors
• Brainstorming date questions and responses in advance if anxious

Proactively planning provides confidence handling unpredictable HS moments - including weeding out unsupportive partners quickly by their reactions.

The Takeaway

Don’t let HS steal chances for romantic fulfillment. Communicate courageously about your health when the time feels right. Modify intimacy gently as required while prioritizing self-care. Seek conscious, adaptable partners by their words and actions, not just initial attraction. Trust that someone capable of loving you holistically exists - with effort and patience, they will appear.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new treatment regimen.