Patient stories
We don't publish patient testimonials yet — and we want to explain why.
Most condition-specific surgical sites lead with glowing before-and-after stories. Some of those stories are real. Many are composites, paraphrases, or quietly fabricated. With HS — a stigmatized, sensitive, chronic disease — we have decided to wait until we can do this honestly, or not do it at all.
Why nothing is here yet
The decision, written down.
Three reasons. First, HS is stigmatized in ways that make publishing patient identity risky for the patient even when they agree to it in the moment. Second, photographic outcomes rarely capture what HS care actually delivers — meaningful disease reduction over months, not dramatic before-and-after moments. Third, we are early enough as a dedicated HS program that any small set of stories would over-represent the cases that consented quickly and under-represent everyone else.
We would rather publish nothing than publish something that misleads. When we have a representative set of stories whose authors have actively chosen to share them, this page will fill in. Until then, the page itself is the position.
What we will not do
Four practices we have decided against.
- Fabricated or composite testimonials
- Many condition-specific sites publish quotes that read suspiciously similar. We do not write them and we do not commission them. A quote on this site will be a real patient's words.
- Anonymous before-and-after photos
- Photographic outcomes without a real, consented patient behind them are misleading by default. They also flatten a chronic disease into a single moment that almost always omits the harder parts.
- Cherry-picked best results
- Even with consent, publishing only the best cases distorts the picture. HS outcomes vary by stage, anatomy, biology, and life circumstance. A representative honest story is more useful than an extraordinary one.
- Identifying detail without explicit, specific consent
- Photos, names, faces, distinguishing tattoos, region-specific anatomy. None of it appears here unless a patient has signed a specific consent — not a buried clause in an intake form.
What we will publish
When this page fills in.
- Long-form patient narratives — when patients want to tell them
- Three to five real stories across the disease spectrum: a Hurley I patient who started early with follicle laser, a Hurley II patient who had a focal CO₂ closure, and a more advanced case who chose staged surgery. Written in the patient's voice, edited only for clarity.
- Honest outcome detail
- What worked. What didn't. Time off work. What the recovery actually felt like. What they wish they'd known sooner. The honest version, not the marketing version.
- Outcome metrics, anonymized and in aggregate
- When we have enough cases to report meaningfully — number of patients treated, durable closure rate by region, time to wound closure, complication rate — we will publish those numbers alongside the cohort definition. Aggregate data does not require individual identification.
- Updated reviews from outside our site
- Where patients have chosen to share publicly elsewhere (Google, Yelp, RealSelf, HS patient communities), we will point to those once a meaningful volume exists. We do not solicit or filter them.
Our consent framework
Four principles, applied to every story we publish.
- Specific, not general
- Consent is for a defined use — this website, this section, this version of the story — not a broad license to use someone's experience however we'd like later.
- Reviewable and revocable
- Patients receive a draft to review before anything is published. Consent can be withdrawn at any time and the content is removed within five business days.
- Identification is opt-in, layered
- First name only, first name + region, or full identification are separate choices. Photos are a separate choice again. No box is pre-checked.
- Children and minors: not published
- We do not publish stories involving minors, even with parental consent. The decision belongs to the patient as an adult.
If you want to talk with another patient
We can sometimes facilitate.
A small number of past patients have offered to speak with prospective patients before consultation — usually by phone or email, in their own time. We will ask whether someone is available who matches your situation (Hurley stage, anatomy, travel question, biologic concern), and we will make an introduction if there is a fit. We never share patient contact information without their direct permission for each request.
If we don't have a match, we'll say so plainly rather than stretching for one. Independent communities — including the Hidradenitis Suppurativa Foundation and active patient groups online — are valuable parallel resources, and we are happy to point you toward them.
In the meantime
The clinical pages on this site are written to answer the questions stories usually answer indirectly: what the procedure is, what recovery feels like, what the evidence actually shows, and who is and isn't a candidate. Start with the protocol, candidacy, recovery, and the evidence.
Next step
The most useful version of someone else's story is a consultation about yours.
A short intake gets reviewed by our team within one business day.
Typical response within one business day. We will never share your information.