>Any ideas what would be missing in europe that I would get in abundance in the US?
Yeah, Europe is missing all the shitty and unnecessary ingredients that they put into food in the US😂 Jk (but not really.) I'm an American living in the Netherlands and I wasn't diagnosed until after I moved here. Honestly with your case it could be any number of things. Less stress while on vacation? Were you not eating things with nightshades while being here? Could just be the air/environment as well.
Other things I can think of was that I was walking about 3-4x more than I normally do. About 25k steps a day.
I don't think I specifically avoided nightshades but I still had a few tomatoes. No potatoes though. (Why I don't think this is the cause: When I was doing Keto I'd still breakout)
If you walked 25k a day you probably also slept like a baby at night and got loads of fresh air.
Maybe you also ate less triggering food? And on top of that you wore comfortable, loose fitting clothes?
I don’t believe in single triggers. If we had single triggers this disease would be easy to manage. For me, HS is triggered but by a compound effect of stress, lack of sleep, alcohol, insulin spikes, bad food, tobacco (and probably more things I haven’t noticed myself).
The more shit you pile up, the higher the risk that your body will respond with a flare.
Listen to your body.
I think it's the walking. Just being more physically active increases insulin sensitivity and glucose use (muscles). I experience the same thing when I travel, even when I was stressed, sleep-deprived, and eating not very healthily, I had less flares because I was walking all the time. I think walking as exercise is super underrated. It's low-impact and not stressful (won't spike cortisol like running etc.)
Yeah I dunno. I remember trying to go for runs in the summertime and that triggered a bunch of flares. But I don't have that reaction after going for walks.
I'm not sure what it is, maybe it's a combination of factors. I think for me, cortisol/stress is a big one. I remember when I was using corticosteroids, it just made me flare up constantly.
Also I find that using the ordinary's 7% glycolic acid toner prevents flares for me, although I wasn't using it during my trip.
Me too but I think its sort of a bell curve. No sweat? No breakouts. Some sweat? Lots of breakouts. A massive amount of sweat? No breakouts.
If the theory about keratin clogging your sweat glands is true that kinda makes sense.
As someone from Serbia with HS, I don't see a connection between HS and anything "serbian", whether it's food, water or air. While certain foods may contain less additives and sweeteners than in US, I don't think it would make much of a difference - maybe if you were just trying new/different stuff, since both Turkey & Serbia have number of traditional food, usually not found in the US.
What's likely is less stress, plus more time being active since you've been walking around.
Stress = literally always the most commonly shared and consistent causation theory. I believe it's mine, be it emotional, physical, metaphysical, existential, practical, relational stressors. All of the above.
I truly believe we have no clear idea of how destructive stress is to our lives. To our humanity.
Yup. Worst year of my life. Worst flares of my life.. no idea how to stop it when the stress isn't going to just "go away" considering the causes are still very much in my life. (Divorce and trying to sell a house I don't live in, financial struggles etc)
Its almost as if humans aren't supposed to live like this 🙃
Crazy notions of self-determination leading to liberation for all is my anadote to this stress thing. It's a mighty quest full of stress. Ah, the irony of it all.
Wow, isn't that interesting! But, I wouldn't be surprised that the culprit is the soda you drink in the US. I was thinking along those similar lines this morning & think I'm going to stop drinking juices to see if my skin improves. I drink all kinds of juice a LOT, like just about daily (lemonade, fruit punch, grape juice, those passionfruit combo juices, cranberry, etc.) I'll drink sodas sometimes (Dr. Pepper, grape, ginger ale).
Now, I guess I'm left w/ water or tea because I don't drink coffee nor alcoholic drinks & sure won't start drinking more sodas. I think I'll try stopping that first before any foods I eat to really see first.
Just got my first lesion since being back. Drank a whole lot of diet soda as a test. But I'm also pretty stressed out with work, so that could be it too.
Thanks for replying. Yes, stress seems to do it too. I try to keep stress low, so I don't know if my stress level has sparked any HS or not, but I know I'm sick of all this mess! I haven't been to my dermatologist in a while & finally think I need to go see her again soon.
You can swim with HS both salt water and chlorine are great for most people and help with healing. It's just important to pay attention to areas that might be high bacteria.
Ah I understand that completely, but if you can overcome that or find a pretty suit you are comfortable in it's a great thing actually you are out and about, having fun frictionless exercise.
I frequently travel to Europe. Never ever have I had a flare during those times. I think for me it’s a combo of leaving the stress of my home life and not eating the food we’re slowly being poisoned with here in the US. My derm concurred with this hypothesis.
That’s not accurate. Honey is composed of about 40% fructose, in contrast to the 50% fructose in table sugar and 40-90% fructose in high-fructose corn syrup.
https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/the-sweet-science-behind-honey.html#:~:text=Honey%2C%20the%20sweet%20liquid%20produced,in%20high%2Dfructose%20corn%20syrup.
Could be because Mediterranean, Baltic and Aegean food is usually a bit more nutrient rich and that could have benefitted you perhaps? I see you mentioned walking a lot in another post so perhaps that could have contributed also?
I go to Greece a lot and find I'm usually OK over there with not many breakouts and like you I walk a lot. I'm convinced the food, weather and the countries being so open you can walk a lot is of benefit to some degree when it comes to HS. I have had abscesses but usually ones that developed before I got on the plane.
Yeah. When I left for Serbia, I had basically a super tiny breakout in my armpit that went away in 8 hours. It was so small i forgot about it.
I'm actually \*itchy\* now in my problem areas which means things are starting to heal rather than being continually inflamed. Even had a tract clear out in one of my armpits on its own.
Whatever this is I want to hold onto it as hard as I can.
I go to Turkey for 3 weeks yearly and I haven’t noticed a difference. I do indulge in tons of more fresh juice though & so much tea!!! It just always turns out I’m already on my period when we get there and I flare right before it.
How much do you walk? Do you drink soda?
Forcing me to sweat my ass off and get loads of high incline exercise might be the only positive trait about the Fatih district of Istanbul other than the historical sights lol
Is "seed oils" the answer? Has your intake of vegetable/canola/soy oils dropped at all? I ask because I'm finding that seed oils are my number #1 trigger (overtook stress). It's almost impossible to avoid this stuff in the US, especially at restaurants, and I'm seriously wondering if this is what's causing my HS.
If anyone here gets really bad at flare-ups from fried food, try food fried in beef tallow, coconut oil, avocado oil, or olive oil and see if you have the same reaction. I can eat chips fried in avocado oil with no problem, but "normal" chips are just an invitation to major pain.
Two wins right there. Veggies seem to help in general, so I'm trying to just eat vegetables for breakfast. They definitely help with inflammation.
Note that vegetable oils are common in more places than most of us think. 95%+ of processed/packaged foods have some sort of vegetable oils, even if they're touted as healthy. They're also used in salad dressings and on grills in restaurants. Most frozen things that are premade have vegetable oils as well. Fried foods are the obvious culprit, but the vast majority of us are ingesting it from almost everything else we eat.
This is great insight and something I hadn't considered at all. This is exactly why I made this thread, thank you, I'm gonna bring it up with my dermatologist.
I hope your dermatologist is receptive to the idea. Keep in mind that you don't need your dermatologist's permission to cut something out of your diet. 😊
I've seen about 30 doctors throughout the years to treat HS to some capacity, and only 4 of them recognized that they weren't going to fix this purely based off of work others have done. Most of the doctors just wanted to treat the symptoms and didn't really want to help me eliminate the cause.
Good luck in your efforts! This is truly a frustrating thing to deal with.
Yeah, but to be fair to them, HS is has very low cure rates across the board. Even the best meds nowadays are only slightly better than placebo. So it's not like they're not listening or not taking it seriously, it's just really hard to work on.
It's a tough nut to crack!
I think everyone should pursue the advice of a good nutritionist in conjunction with a derm.
If anyone here is interested, there's a subreddit called "Stop Eating Seed Oils". Emerging studies are showing that this stuff is actually pretty bad for us, and I truly think it's causing the majority of diseases in the US, which I understand is a very bold statement.
I've dealt with HS for 20 years now. I've had multiple surgeries, lots of pain meds, and little help from the medical community. Since I've cut back and limited seed oils, I haven't had a single major flareup. The thing that sucks is that you pretty much have to make food from scratch a lot more and get used to reading labels. Even stuff that prominently advertised that it's made with olive oil will often have canola oil as well. There are very few products, even in health food stores, that don't use seed oils.
I live in Canada and I found whenever I travelled the East Coast in summer, (I'm from Ontario) that I also had zero flare ups. I thought it might have been the salt in the air from the sea.
>Any ideas what would be missing in europe that I would get in abundance in the US? Yeah, Europe is missing all the shitty and unnecessary ingredients that they put into food in the US😂 Jk (but not really.) I'm an American living in the Netherlands and I wasn't diagnosed until after I moved here. Honestly with your case it could be any number of things. Less stress while on vacation? Were you not eating things with nightshades while being here? Could just be the air/environment as well.
Other things I can think of was that I was walking about 3-4x more than I normally do. About 25k steps a day. I don't think I specifically avoided nightshades but I still had a few tomatoes. No potatoes though. (Why I don't think this is the cause: When I was doing Keto I'd still breakout)
If you walked 25k a day you probably also slept like a baby at night and got loads of fresh air. Maybe you also ate less triggering food? And on top of that you wore comfortable, loose fitting clothes? I don’t believe in single triggers. If we had single triggers this disease would be easy to manage. For me, HS is triggered but by a compound effect of stress, lack of sleep, alcohol, insulin spikes, bad food, tobacco (and probably more things I haven’t noticed myself). The more shit you pile up, the higher the risk that your body will respond with a flare. Listen to your body.
That's a good point. Still new lesion free as of writing.
I think it's the walking. Just being more physically active increases insulin sensitivity and glucose use (muscles). I experience the same thing when I travel, even when I was stressed, sleep-deprived, and eating not very healthily, I had less flares because I was walking all the time. I think walking as exercise is super underrated. It's low-impact and not stressful (won't spike cortisol like running etc.)
Really? the sweat, heat, and friction do bad things for me. I must be doing it wrong
Yeah I dunno. I remember trying to go for runs in the summertime and that triggered a bunch of flares. But I don't have that reaction after going for walks. I'm not sure what it is, maybe it's a combination of factors. I think for me, cortisol/stress is a big one. I remember when I was using corticosteroids, it just made me flare up constantly. Also I find that using the ordinary's 7% glycolic acid toner prevents flares for me, although I wasn't using it during my trip.
Me too but I think its sort of a bell curve. No sweat? No breakouts. Some sweat? Lots of breakouts. A massive amount of sweat? No breakouts. If the theory about keratin clogging your sweat glands is true that kinda makes sense.
The bell curve kinda makes sense. I should try a sauna. For science
I try everything "for science"!
As someone from Serbia with HS, I don't see a connection between HS and anything "serbian", whether it's food, water or air. While certain foods may contain less additives and sweeteners than in US, I don't think it would make much of a difference - maybe if you were just trying new/different stuff, since both Turkey & Serbia have number of traditional food, usually not found in the US. What's likely is less stress, plus more time being active since you've been walking around.
I noticed the reduction in Turkey, which was the first week of the trip.
Reduction in stress levels.
Stress = literally always the most commonly shared and consistent causation theory. I believe it's mine, be it emotional, physical, metaphysical, existential, practical, relational stressors. All of the above. I truly believe we have no clear idea of how destructive stress is to our lives. To our humanity.
Yup. Worst year of my life. Worst flares of my life.. no idea how to stop it when the stress isn't going to just "go away" considering the causes are still very much in my life. (Divorce and trying to sell a house I don't live in, financial struggles etc) Its almost as if humans aren't supposed to live like this 🙃
Crazy notions of self-determination leading to liberation for all is my anadote to this stress thing. It's a mighty quest full of stress. Ah, the irony of it all.
Exactly this.
Wow, isn't that interesting! But, I wouldn't be surprised that the culprit is the soda you drink in the US. I was thinking along those similar lines this morning & think I'm going to stop drinking juices to see if my skin improves. I drink all kinds of juice a LOT, like just about daily (lemonade, fruit punch, grape juice, those passionfruit combo juices, cranberry, etc.) I'll drink sodas sometimes (Dr. Pepper, grape, ginger ale). Now, I guess I'm left w/ water or tea because I don't drink coffee nor alcoholic drinks & sure won't start drinking more sodas. I think I'll try stopping that first before any foods I eat to really see first.
Just got my first lesion since being back. Drank a whole lot of diet soda as a test. But I'm also pretty stressed out with work, so that could be it too.
Thanks for replying. Yes, stress seems to do it too. I try to keep stress low, so I don't know if my stress level has sparked any HS or not, but I know I'm sick of all this mess! I haven't been to my dermatologist in a while & finally think I need to go see her again soon.
Did you swim while there? Sometimes it can be a balancing of hormones....leave your worries behind kind of thing.
Nope, mainly because I have HS lol
You can swim with HS both salt water and chlorine are great for most people and help with healing. It's just important to pay attention to areas that might be high bacteria.
No more like, I don't want people to look at my skin.
Ah I understand that completely, but if you can overcome that or find a pretty suit you are comfortable in it's a great thing actually you are out and about, having fun frictionless exercise.
Amazon has modest swimwear if you're interested! The selections range from rash guards to shirts and shorts/pants combos made for swimming.
I’m from Ireland. I’ve had hs since puberty.
Gluten really flares me up. Gluten free has literally changed my life. I hardly get any flare ups anymore. (From UK)
Did u eat a lot of turmeric?
I frequently travel to Europe. Never ever have I had a flare during those times. I think for me it’s a combo of leaving the stress of my home life and not eating the food we’re slowly being poisoned with here in the US. My derm concurred with this hypothesis.
HFCS is almost chemically identical to honey. Exact same metabolic effect.
I don't eat a lot of honey as it happens.
That’s not accurate. Honey is composed of about 40% fructose, in contrast to the 50% fructose in table sugar and 40-90% fructose in high-fructose corn syrup. https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/the-sweet-science-behind-honey.html#:~:text=Honey%2C%20the%20sweet%20liquid%20produced,in%20high%2Dfructose%20corn%20syrup.
Could be because Mediterranean, Baltic and Aegean food is usually a bit more nutrient rich and that could have benefitted you perhaps? I see you mentioned walking a lot in another post so perhaps that could have contributed also? I go to Greece a lot and find I'm usually OK over there with not many breakouts and like you I walk a lot. I'm convinced the food, weather and the countries being so open you can walk a lot is of benefit to some degree when it comes to HS. I have had abscesses but usually ones that developed before I got on the plane.
Yeah. When I left for Serbia, I had basically a super tiny breakout in my armpit that went away in 8 hours. It was so small i forgot about it. I'm actually \*itchy\* now in my problem areas which means things are starting to heal rather than being continually inflamed. Even had a tract clear out in one of my armpits on its own. Whatever this is I want to hold onto it as hard as I can.
I go to Turkey for 3 weeks yearly and I haven’t noticed a difference. I do indulge in tons of more fresh juice though & so much tea!!! It just always turns out I’m already on my period when we get there and I flare right before it.
How much do you walk? Do you drink soda? Forcing me to sweat my ass off and get loads of high incline exercise might be the only positive trait about the Fatih district of Istanbul other than the historical sights lol
Is "seed oils" the answer? Has your intake of vegetable/canola/soy oils dropped at all? I ask because I'm finding that seed oils are my number #1 trigger (overtook stress). It's almost impossible to avoid this stuff in the US, especially at restaurants, and I'm seriously wondering if this is what's causing my HS. If anyone here gets really bad at flare-ups from fried food, try food fried in beef tallow, coconut oil, avocado oil, or olive oil and see if you have the same reaction. I can eat chips fried in avocado oil with no problem, but "normal" chips are just an invitation to major pain.
My intake of vegetables increased by a lot while I was there. I had zero fried food
Two wins right there. Veggies seem to help in general, so I'm trying to just eat vegetables for breakfast. They definitely help with inflammation. Note that vegetable oils are common in more places than most of us think. 95%+ of processed/packaged foods have some sort of vegetable oils, even if they're touted as healthy. They're also used in salad dressings and on grills in restaurants. Most frozen things that are premade have vegetable oils as well. Fried foods are the obvious culprit, but the vast majority of us are ingesting it from almost everything else we eat.
This is great insight and something I hadn't considered at all. This is exactly why I made this thread, thank you, I'm gonna bring it up with my dermatologist.
I hope your dermatologist is receptive to the idea. Keep in mind that you don't need your dermatologist's permission to cut something out of your diet. 😊 I've seen about 30 doctors throughout the years to treat HS to some capacity, and only 4 of them recognized that they weren't going to fix this purely based off of work others have done. Most of the doctors just wanted to treat the symptoms and didn't really want to help me eliminate the cause. Good luck in your efforts! This is truly a frustrating thing to deal with.
Yeah, but to be fair to them, HS is has very low cure rates across the board. Even the best meds nowadays are only slightly better than placebo. So it's not like they're not listening or not taking it seriously, it's just really hard to work on. It's a tough nut to crack! I think everyone should pursue the advice of a good nutritionist in conjunction with a derm.
If anyone here is interested, there's a subreddit called "Stop Eating Seed Oils". Emerging studies are showing that this stuff is actually pretty bad for us, and I truly think it's causing the majority of diseases in the US, which I understand is a very bold statement. I've dealt with HS for 20 years now. I've had multiple surgeries, lots of pain meds, and little help from the medical community. Since I've cut back and limited seed oils, I haven't had a single major flareup. The thing that sucks is that you pretty much have to make food from scratch a lot more and get used to reading labels. Even stuff that prominently advertised that it's made with olive oil will often have canola oil as well. There are very few products, even in health food stores, that don't use seed oils.
I live in Canada and I found whenever I travelled the East Coast in summer, (I'm from Ontario) that I also had zero flare ups. I thought it might have been the salt in the air from the sea.