My thoughts on Hidradenitis Suppurativa

Site updated Saturday, September 10, 2005

Hidradenitis Suppurativa - Thoughts and Theories

by Jason Cameron

My Treatment Diary

To see what symptoms I had and how they have been affected by my treatment so far, click here to view my "Feelin' Groovy" page.

(I did not keep a record of my treatment or results until I started really feeling better and thought that others might like to know more about exactly what I had done in order to achieve these results. Of course, results will vary for each individual)

Date: Wednesday, July 27th, 2005

History:

On 7/18 I used Nizoral A-D shampoo as directed on my hair and scalp only. Dandruff cleared completely for the first time in my life within 2 days. Itchy rash on my chest cleared-up some, and dry, peeling skin on my hands began to clear up.

On 7/21 I used Nizoral A-D shampoo as a body wash. In the shower, I wet my entire body. Turned off water and covered entire body with Dial Anti-bacterial body wash. Allowed 3 minutes before rinsing off. Followed with exact same application of Nizoral A-D. Dandruff on scalp still completely gone. Dandruff and dry skin in eyebrows, mustache and beard completely gone within a day. Skin everywhere feels healthier to the touch. Scars on arm diminishing (old burn scars). Deep itching in ears subsided. HS lesions stopped draining, started healing, and odor disappeared almost completely. Sinuses clearer. Calluses on feet subsiding. Back, neck and joint pain decreased.

On 7/24 I trimmed my long, shaggy beard for the first time in 8 months and shaved my neck. For the first time in my life, there was no irritation from shaving, no dry skin or red, blotchy patches. Skin feels soft and supple. I used a cheap, disposable razor and the same shaving cream I've used before. I showered using Dial Anti-bacterial body wash, but I only used Nizoral on my hair/scalp and on my face. All other symptomatic improvement continues. In addition, I have noticed improvement in my energy and positive attitude.

Current:

7/27 I purchased Olive Leaf Extract (OLE) and Acidophilus. Began OLE treatment with one capsule at 1:00pm. Consumed on empty stomach with 16 oz of water. I will be using complete Nizoral/Antibacterial procedure when I shower today. All symptomatic improvements continue except that there may have been slight drainage from HS lesions, but without odor. Plantar wart I've had on my toe for years is gone (when did that disappear?) Slimy feeling I've always had on my hands (which left cloudy stains on drinking glasses and caused paper that I came into contact with to become impossible to write on with a ball point pen) is nearly gone.

     Update: My stomach is gurgly and my HS lesions are definitely draining. Also, I just had a twinge of pain down there. None of this is really very unpleasant, but I wanted to note it here. Does that mean the OLE is working? These are not negative reactions, yet. Perhaps I should eat something. I haven't had anything today but sugary coffee (Latté) and water.

     Update: It's about 4:30. I finally ate. I had a can of tuna with mayonnaise. Avoiding sugar and carbs, so I didn't have a sandwich. I am starting to have some weird feelings down in the GI tract, and I am having some serious gas. I don't think it was because of the food, though. I just ate two minutes ago. Now I will finally get a shower.

     Update: Just got dressed, it's about 5:00. Something is going on in my intestines. My guts are rumbling. Again, I can't say it's very unpleasant, but something drastic is changing down there. I feel some serious gas coming on. I will take another OLE dose at 6:00. Otherwise, all is well and I feel great.

     Update: 7:45. I just ate some green beans, a little macaroni and cheese, a little bit of cheddar cheese and some salami. I feel kind-of bad. I'm a little spaced out and sleepy. My lips are stinging, which could be from the Nizoral, or it could be from sitting in front of a fan all day. My stomach feels a little queasy and I'm still building-up some serious gas. Also, my throat is a little sore. I think I'll lay down for a while.

     Update: 12:17am I ate peas and carrots for dinner. Took final OLE for today. My stomach has been settled for a while now. The nap helped. My lips stopped stinging and throat stopped hurting. Overall, I feel pretty good. I discovered a weird patch of dry skin on my ankle. It feels really strange, like when you have super glue on your skin. I discovered it because it was itchy. I've never noticed it before. It is ashy in places, and dark in others. I don't know what to make of it. I hope that it clears up on it's own!

7/28 I feel quite good today. I woke up a little later than usual. A cold slice of pizza for breakfast was not the best thing I could eat, but oh well. There don't seem to be any negative effects from taking OLE. I am anxious to start acidophilus.

     Update: 12:30am I was bad today. I have been taking all of my OLE on time, but I ate bad things today, like Taco Bell, cookies and a cheese sandwich. Right now I'm drinking beer, which is a definite no-no, but what the hell. I want to know if this treatment will work in spite of a poor diet. At least, that's my excuse. On the bright side, I am drinking in celebration because my friend Chuck is here. I notice that I am not drinking as fast as I usually do, and I am enjoying a steady buzz rather than getting really drunk. I may not even finish the 12-pack I bought. That is not like the me that I have known. I usually drink until all the alcohol is gone.

7/29 I am a terrible test subject. I stayed up all night. I drank 10 beers. The good news is that I enjoyed them. I never really got drunk. For the first time in my life, I just maintained a nice, soothing buzz for the whole time I was hanging out with Chuck. After the beer was gone (Chuck drank 2 of them when he ran out of Jim Beam) I did not hit the gin and tonic or the rum my roommate has in the refrigerator right now. Normally, I would. I would drink until I puke or pass out. Instead, I just started drinking water. I should be really tired and achy by now, but I have to confess that I feel pretty good. Of course I don't think drinking is a good thing to do while treating HS and Candida, but this experience seems to show that a little drinking may be okay. I might not have to be as strict with the diet as I had thought.

     Update: It's about noon. I slept for about 4 hours. I feel really good, which is surprising since I drank a bunch of beer and stayed up all night. I should be feeling pretty rotten right now. But I don't. I just took my first OLE (Olive Leaf Extract) for today, and I will be taking some acidophilus here in a little while. All of my symptoms are still looking good. I still don't know what that patch of dry skin on my ankle is all about. But I noticed that when I sit at my computer desk, I fold that leg under my other leg and that spot on my ankle may be rubbing on the leather seat. I don't know if that's got anything to do with it. Maybe I'll try sitting with both feet on the floor for a while and see if that helps.

     Update: I just realized that the acidophilus product I bought says to take 1 capsule a day. I had planned on taking 3-4 doses a day, but maybe that's unnecessary. I will be a good boy for now and follow directions. I don't know what made me think I needed to take multiple doses every day. That may be the directions on another brand that I looked at. I don't know. I do know I'm tired of reading the little writing on the sides of bottles.

•  Since then, I haven't been writing in the journal. All I have to say is that a James Brown song keeps running through my head... cause I feel good! I did find what I thought was a new "alien" on my butt in the shower on the 31st. It was about the size of a marble. I hadn't noticed it because there wasn't any pain or pressure. I'm not really sure if it was new or not. But it made me doubt my treatment for a moment. It got smaller every day since then, and now it is almost gone.

But I guess I owe it to history to keep track of every wonderful detail of how much better I feel, and how much my life has improved! So I'll try to update this soon. How about right now?

8/3 I still feel great. The really old scars that make my butt look like a relief map of the moon are clearing up. They haven't been active in a couple of years, but they were like dormant volcanoes. Now it's all clearing up. I should take a picture. Yeah, who wants to see my lumpy butt? I'm basically sticking to the "week 2" portion of my treatment plan. Things are clearing up left and right. There are some strange black lines on the nails of my big toes. Time to research "Tinea" again. My first guess is that it is a nail fungus that was killed by the Nizoral or the Betadyne. The lines only go down to the edge of a small half-moon of new growth. I will add this to my research list and keep an eye on it. Also, that patch of dry skin on my foot is most likely from the way that I sit. It matches the patch of dry skin on the elbow of my "mouse hand". I wish this computer chair didn't have arms.

8/4 I went to bed after 4:00am last night. I was pretty upset about some stuff going on in an HS forum, so I was feeling pretty bad. I will have to be even more careful of what I say and how I say it. As I lay there, I kept feeling worse, and my heart was beating too fast. I couldn't sleep. When I got back up, I was a little dizzy. I decided to take a walk to clear my head. After walking around for about 30 blocks, I tried to go back to bed. I was still not feeling well. I realized that I've hardly been eating anything lately. I have gone from eating a lot of sugary foods, a lot of carbs, and drinking a lot of beer to consuming very little of any of these in a very short span of time. I have been forgetting to eat because I am very busy and I don't get cravings like I used to have. I wondered if my blood sugar was actually too low, something it's probably never been in my life. I ate a chocolate chip cookie to see if maybe that was what the problem was. I felt better a few minutes later and went to bed. I slept fine after that. But the experience scared me pretty bad. I should probably monitor my blood sugar, but I can't afford test strips for another 2 weeks. I definitely need to make sure I eat enough every day. The only variation in my treatment yesterday was that I didn't take the iron and selenium supplements. The kind that I bought (of both of these) is a higher dose that I wanted, so I try to compensate by not taking them every day. I just skip them occasionally so that they don't build-up to excessive levels. I also missed the last (4th) dose of Olive Leaf Extract. Right now, I need to get some breakfast. I am still feeling a little shaky.

     Update: 2:08pm I am suffering from a flare-up of a lump I have had for a long time. It is rather small, but it is somewhat painfull due to it's location. I have no explanation for my problems last night or this flare-up. I have returned to using Nizoral on my entire body in case Candida has returned to areas that have not been getting washed with an antifungal soap in the last few days.

8/5 Well, I've been a little constipated for a couple of days now. I sat in "the little library" for a while last night, but I did not launch any brown boats. Instead, the toilet was full of blood when I got up. The small lump that had swelled up had drained. But the blood was nice and red to slightly pink. There was no smell. I still feel pretty good, but a little tired. I'm going to stick with my treatment plan but add as much sleep as I can get. I do believe that I have had a Candida overgrowth my whole life. It may take a while to chase 34 years of colonization out of my body. I feel a little like I am excorcising demons. I guess in a way I am.

     Update: 1:11pm I am feeling much better. The draining has slowed considerably and I finally had a BM. It was quite normal, no blood, but dark colored due to the iron suppliments I am taking. I was really scared that my treatment had gone horribly wrong and almost stopped taking the supplements, but I have had blood in my stool for over 3 years and I had always attributed it to some connection with my HS. So I am continuing with all of the supplements and treatment plans. While this incident was pretty scary, I feel it was just a part of my healing process. What makes me really optomistic is that there was no visable puss in the drainage. It was all fairly healthy looking blood. I doubt that this could be considered a typical reaction that HS sufferers could expect from the treatment plan unless they have had extreme Irritable Bowel Syndrome including blood in their stool. Of course I can not say for sure, but I have suspected for a long time that my HS had connected to my intestines at some point. I guess I'll never know, but the main thing is that I'm feeling much better now. I will post another update after I get a shower and can take a closer look at the situation.

     Update: 4:21pm I showered. The Dial antibacterial body wash burned pretty bad when I used it on my "weeping aliens" today. These are the two located in the crease of my leg, right behind my testicles. Since I began my treatment, they have been getting smaller, but they still maintained a weird look, kind-of like a blood blister. After I got out of the shower and looked at them with a handheld mirror today, I could see that they no longer look like blood blisters. They look more like normal wounds now. One looks like it may be somewhat deeper than the other, but both are smaller now than they were when I got out of the shower yesterday. The draining seems to have stopped. The swelling in the nearby area that I thought was a flare-up of an old alien is nearly gone. That must be part of what drained. I'm feeling pretty good now, with only minor pain down there. I even rode my bike to the hardware store, so how bad can they be?

8/6 Still feeling pretty good. I have been buried in research and rewriting the website since I found that little error in my theory. Overall, nothing really changes except the pathogen I am targeting, and the treatment stays pretty much the same because Pityrosporum ovale is a yeast/fungus, a lot like Candida albicans. They are so simmilar that the same treatment should work for either one or both. I am researching other antifungal herbal remedies. There are a LOT!

8/7 Today I had some itching, followed by swelling of an old alien that hasn't been active in over 2 years. The ones that recently drained all that blood are looking much better and smaller. They seem to be healing. I suspect this one on my rear will do the same thing. Perhaps my body is reclaiming these areas now that the pathogen has been severely limited. I will have to watch and see what happens. The swelling isn't bad. I've stopped using the Zinc, Selenium and Iron supplements for now, and I am taking coral calcuim twice a day. This is part of the new treatment plan I will be posting tonight or tomorrow. I drank 3 beers tonight for my roomates birthday, and I only smoked 3 cigarettes all day. I just don't have the cravings like I used to.

8/8 Okay, the cigarette cravings come and go. I chainsmoke for a while, and then go hours without smoking. Weird. The old alien that re-activated yesterday is still a little swollen, but the swelling didn't get very bad, and it seems to haved stop swelling since this morning. It doesn't hurt much. I don't know if it's even going to drain. Everything else about my skin looks really good. Everything is clearing up, and I mean everything. I hardly have a zit, bump, blackhead or anything anywhere. My skin is healthy looking, shiny, smooth and soft. I do not use any kind of lotion, baby oil or anything. My nails are growing in with a nice, fleshy pink color. I never realized how yellow they were before. The new growth is totally different. I'm still feeling great. It's so nice not to be depressed, anxious and paranoid all the time.

8/9 No real change in the re-activated alien on my butt. I had stopped taking the zinc, selenium and iron, and I am wondering if any of those played an important part in the last drainage event... I have to experiment. I took a zinc tablet a few minutes ago, so I'm waiting to see if there's any reaction. Over the next few days I will have to experiment with the others, too. I'm broke, so I can't really change my diet to include the foods I want to eat, like salad, vegetables, and meat that is not canned tuna. Life is hell. But I'm still feeling great. My check comes on Friday. I can survive until then. The old aliens that drained a few days ago are looking much better now. They're smaller, and they really look like they're healing. There is a small, hard knot behind them where the swelling was before. The battle rages on. I can't wait until they're gone. They are in such a bad spot, right in the deep crease of my leg, behind "the boys". In other news, I think I am losing weight. I ought to be! I hardly drink any beer or alcohol anymore, I eat a lot less sweets and carbs, and I ride my bike a lot. It's so nice not to have those awful cravings anymore. And as an added bonus, my roomate says it looks like my hair is growing back in my "male pattern" bald spot. Cool. It does look a little fuller. Pretty soon, I might be like regular people. What's that like?

     Update: It's about 8:40pm. Never underestimate the power of a few of cookies. Wow. 4 Chips Ahoy cookies and I was racing. I took a 40 minute bike ride to work them out of my system. I was feeling really edgy, like I needed to do something. I felt the same way after I had some birthday cake last night. No obvious effects from the zinc yet. I'll take another one tomorrow.

     Update: It's 10:40pm. Is it the zinc? The swelling on my butt is going down. The pain is going away. I thought maybe it had started to drain because I started to feel that relief that I'm sure you are familliar with if you have HS. The pain was mild, anyway, but it seemed to be going away within the last hour. I expected to find a sticky, bloody mess on the paper towel I tucked into my briefs, but there is no sign of drainage. Just less pain. I will definitely take another zinc tomorrow and see what happens. This swelling is right in the middle of the old crater field on my left butt cheek. It's right where the hard knot has been for the last 5 years or so. This area has been essentially inactive for about 2 years. Most of the scarring around it has been showing signs of healing and looking better since I started my treatment. Maybe my body is throwing a little "going away party" as it sends the pathogens packing. Somehow, I'm not getting all teary-eyed and sentimental...

8/10 By 2 o'clock in the morning all of the swelling on my butt had gone down. Judging from the mild pain in my lymph node, I guess my body decided to escort the pathogens out the front door, instead of throwing them out the window. I am pleased, as this is so much cleaner and neater. I can't say for sure that the zinc was the reason for this, but I'm going to keep taking it. The swelling went down after taking the zinc. That's good enough for me! I get 15 mg in my multi-vitamin, and my zinc supplements are 60 mg. That's a total of 500% of the US RDA. But the body can't store zinc, so I am going to spread it out over the day. I'll take my multi with breakfast, half a zinc with lunch, and half a zinc before bed. Nothing else to report except I'm still feeling great.

8/11 My sinuses have been a little stuffed up and I had a sore throat last night and this morning. It seems to be clearing up now, though. Nothing else to report for now, I'm still feeling really good. I currently have no pain or swelling anywhere.

     Update Midnight - Bad test subject. I forgot some of my supplements and I am playing catch-up. Hell, I didn't even shower today. It's a Nizoral day. I shouldn't miss these. Oh well. I also shouldn't be drinking beer. Oh well. I've got a nice buzz and I don't intend to apologize to anyone. Yeah, Chuck is visiting again. No, I'm not schizophrenic, and Chuck is not one of my personalities. He's a real person who comes to my house to play music sometimes. So I'm still feeling great, no swelling and no draining. No smell. As I drink, my sore throat feels better and my sinuses get worse. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. I feel like a kid, having to learn everything over again. I have only known my body as it was when it was colonized by yeast/fungus. Oddly, I think it may have provided some protection against viruses, pollens and other allergens. I think I may actually have allergies that never manifested before because they couldn't penetrate my yeast/fungus barrier. Okay, that seems a little far-fetched, but why do I suddenly have allergies like my dad and my brother? California typically has a high pollen count and poor air quality. My non-HS friends are suffering from allergies right now. Hmmm...

8/13 Sorry, I skipped a day. I'm sick as a dog. Two of my roommates are sick, too. It's just some kind of resperatory thing. Mostly caughing, sneezing, and really bad sinuses. I'm feeling a little weak and achey. I think I'm getting better now, though. I'm still following the treatment plan. I added selenium back to my treatment because it is supposed to help the immune system, and I started taking garlic pills because they are another anti-fungal herb. My HS is still completely inactive and looking better.

8/25 I apologize for not updating this diary in the last 12 days. I have been focused on moving out of my house. As it turns out, I am stuck here for another month, so I'll try to keep up the diary posts for a while longer.

As far as my self treatment goes, I have been doing roughly the same thing for about a month now. I'm still tweaking the types and amounts of supplements I am taking. Essentially, I take a multivitamin, Olive Leaf Extract, Blue-Green Algae, Calcium, Selenium, Garlic, and Zinc. I am using Dial antibacterial body wash on my whole body, and Betadine solution on my HS areas daily, and Nizoral on my whole body every 3 days. Overall, I would have to say that on a scale from 1 to 10, my total health before I began this treatment was around 3-4. Since I began treatment, I would rate it about 8. That's a dramatic improvement. However, I began all this in an attempt to treat HS. The fact remains that I have not been able to eliminate HS. While there has been significant improvement, HS is still present.

I realize that a month of this very mild treatment is not a good indication of whether or not it works. The benefits I have enjoyed are: no new major flare-ups (several small flare-ups have been observed, but vanished before reaching the size of a marble), reduced drainage from lesions (draining has decreased to about 1/5 of previous amounts. Also, drainage is either clear to slightly yellow, pink or bright red, and lacks puss), odor has been almost completely eliminated, and pain has been reduced to mild, occasional discomfort. Also, there seems to be significant signs of healing in old lesions and sinus tracts.

If my theory that HS is caused by an infection of the apocrine sweat glands by a yeast or fungus such as pityrosporum ovale, candida albicans, or tinea is correct, then my treatment should work. I have recently found information online that suggests that there are hybrid sweat glands that can form around the time of puberty. They are called apoeccrine glands, and are only reported in the armpits. It is unclear if they appear in the groin or other areas as well. Also, there is a lot of research indicating that HS is not an apocrine sweat gland infection, but a hair follicle infection. So the confusion continues. Regardless of where the infection takes place, the fact remains that there is an infection. So to properly treat HS, we need to find the microbial agent that causes the infection and eliminate it. But the other question is, "why do some people suffer from these infections?" and for that, we have to look at the location of infection and study the pathogens possibly causing the infections. We have to look at the nutrient source and how our bodies provide these nutrients. We have to understand the environmental requirements and life cycle of the pathogens.

In order to prove my theory that yeast/fungal pathogens are responsible for HS, I would have to try a much more intensive treatment plan and get positive results. That is not an option for me right now. But a curious thing has happened since I began my treatment. I have been suffering from an upper respiratory infection for about 2 weeks now. It has subsided considerably in the last few days, but it lead me to research bacterial, viral and fungal causes for upper respiratory infections. I know I have been changing my body's flora drastically with my treatment, so I wasn't surprised when I got sick. I wondered if the infection was just from the migration of the yeast/fungus to a new area that wasn't getting as much benefit from my treatment, or if elimination of yeast/fungus had left these areas open to colonization by a virus or bacteria.

This caused me to research Corynebacterium, which is a variety of bacteria that can be responsible for Diphtheria. There are non-diphtheriae types of the bacteria that can cause symptoms similar to what I have been experiencing. I do not know if I received my Diphtheria vaccinations as a kid. I'm pretty sure I haven't received any vaccinations since the age of 6, and a Diphtheria booster is recommended every 10 years for adults. Hmmmm� but Corynebacterium is indicated as a cause of body odor, especially in Bromhidrosis, a condition where excessive production by the apocrine glands provides nutrients for Corynebacterium. The bacteria breaks down substances excreted from these glands, and these broken-down substances can create a strong odor that is described as "musty, rancid, fecal, sour and sweet". Ah, yes� I remember that smell.

Here's a little more information on the subject:

From: http://www.emedicine.com/derm/topic597.htm

"Apocrine bromhidrosis is the most prevalent form and should be differentiated from the less common eccrine bromhidrosis. Several factors contribute to the pathogenesis of apocrine bromhidrosis. Bacterial decomposition of apocrine secretion yields ammonia and short-chain fatty acids with their characteristic strong odors. The most abundant of these acids is (E)-3-methyl-2-hexenoic acid (E-3M2H), which is brought to the skin surface bound by 2 apocrine secretion odor-binding proteins (ASOB1 and ASOB2). One of these binding proteins, ASOB2, has been identified as apolipoprotein D (apoD), a known member of the lipocalin family of carrier proteins. Axillary bacterial flora, predominantly aerobic Corynebacterium species, have been shown to produce the distinctive axillary odor by liberating the E-3M2H compound."

So what does it all mean? The more I research, the more I realize that nobody knows anything about anything. But one thing that is becoming ever more obvious is that the "symptoms" and "diseases" that seem to be related to HS are probably all secondary. There is a ton of evidence that HS sufferers may also suffer from so many other things, and that these things are most likely caused by a secondary infection by other pathogens. My short list of suspects include:

1. Pityrosporum
2. Candida
3. Tinea
4. Staphylococci
5. Streptococci
6. Corynebacterium
7. Cryptococcus neoformans

These seem to be present and may account for numerous symptoms in many people with HS. But what do they all have in common? What specific factor causes these to thrive on a host? That could be the key to understanding the cause of HS.

One factor that seems to be common to all of these is their preference for an acidic environment. Also, many of these are considered harmless in their aerobic form, but can morph into a pathogenic anaerobic form. They tend to prefer the same nutrients, and they can create an acidic environment by excreting waste from the nutrients they consume. So I have to question whether or not there is a pre-disposing factor that causes some people to be more acidic, thus giving rise to colonization by these pathogens, or is it more a matter of diet and other environmental factors that makes us acidic?

Since I am not a doctor or scientist, and I have no laboratory to study these things, I have to make educated guesses based on what I read and what I can observe in my own condition. Then I have to try to come up with inexpensive, non-prescription means to treat myself. Ketoconazole (in Nizoral A-D shampoo) seems to be rather effective, and Olive Leaf Extract and Garlic seem to be helping internally. But there are other factors to consider. There are chain reactions that have significant impact.

One chain reaction is the fact that I stopped craving sweets, carbs and alcohol. Therefore, I cut back on the consumption of things like soda, beer, bread, chips, cookies, candy, cake, pasta, etc. This, in turn, helped my body to become less acidic, and decreased the nutrient supply that several of these pathogens rely on for food. Also, my sense of taste and smell changed, so I enjoy the taste of healthy foods more, and I drink water instead of coffee, soda, iced tea and milk. So the treatment has actually encouraged better eating habits, and I have been losing unwanted weight as a result.

Okay, I realize this is a rather lengthy post for my diary, but this is where I am with my treatment. I have sort-of stagnated, but overall, in a good place. Now that the upper respiratory infection is subsiding, I feel great. My HS is not cured but under control, and many other symptoms are still greatly improved. I will continue my treatment, and continue experimenting with supplements.

I quit taking Iron supplements on August 7th, and I began feeling sick on the 10th or 11th. Corynebacterium seems to become active after depleting Iron from it's environment. I still get some iron from my diet and from my multivitamin. I am considering going back on the Iron supplements.

I also want to try Pau D'arco and Oil of Oregano. They contain some anti-fungal elements that are different from what I am getting from Garlic and Olive Leaf Extract. It has been said that yeast/fungus and bacteria that are effectively treated with such natural herbal remedies cannot develop resistance to them as they do with antibiotic medicines, but I think taking a few different herbal remedies at the same time might help to reach different areas of the body and keep the pathogens from "hiding" in places where one type does not reach, such as the nose, sinuses and throat.

I am also considering increasing my intake of Magnesium. There are many reasons for this. There is Magnesium in my multivitamin (100% RDA) but I think it might help my immune system to increase that amount, at least temporarily.

I feel that my body has been rather severely depleted of stores of many vitamins and minerals by years of infection, sickness, poor diet, alcohol abuse, smoking and stress. It probably couldn't hurt to try to get these levels back to normal. Of course, with all vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements, you have to be careful not to take too much. Many are toxic in large quantities.

8/26 I have tried to stay away from discussing colloidal silver, but I finally got a chance to try it. I am using a product called "Sovereign Silver", which contains very small silver particles, 10 parts per million, in water with no additives or other ingredients. It came in a spray bottle. I can see how some might try this, not get instant results for the things they are trying to treat, and dismiss it as worthless, but I feel I am getting significant results in fighting harmful bacteria. My upper respiratory problem improved rapidly when I used colloidal silver last night, but there was some confusion over whether it was the silver or the supplements I took at the same time that actually helped. Today, I took the silver without those supplements and again experienced rapid relief from the symptoms of this upper respiratory infection. Again, I'm not jumping to conclusions, but so far so good. I had previously considered going to a doctor to get an antibiotic prescription for this, but decided to try the silver because it is cheaper, and it supposedly only targets the harmful bacteria in our bodies, not the beneficial bacteria in our GI tract. This site offers the best explanation of the benefits and risks of using colloidal silver that I have ever read:

http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/colloidal_silver/Colloidal_Silver_Research.html

It is not a comercial site. It mentions that the correct particle size and the correct form of silver are very inportant. I think that various bacteria play a role in at least some of the secondary symptoms related to HS, so this is an excellent option for me in terms of fighting harmful bacteria internally. For my skin, I have relied on antibacterial soap, but now I can also spray myself with colloidal silver. According to the site listed above, "...many researchers such as Bob Beck have reported that silver in a colloidal state eliminates virtually all known pathogens, viruses, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, and yeasts. Yet, it appears that there is no effect on the good bacteria in the intestinal tract, either because it does not attack good bacteria, or it is absorbed into the blood stream before reaching the intestinal tract." So for people who do not want to take antibiotics, this may be a viable option.

As for my HS and general health today, I feel spectacular. Not good, not great, but spectacular. I can't remember a day in my life when I've felt this good. Even though I have slight draining from lesions between my legs, I have no pain. I rode my bicycle to the drugstore. I am not taking any pain medication. Not aspirin, ibuprofen or anything. I haven't take any new supplements yet today except the silver. I stayed up late last night and only got 5 ½ hours of sleep, but I have energy to burn today. I have to quote Paul Simon here and say, "I can't get used to something so right".

8/27 Nothing new to report. The upper respiratory infection seems to be almost completely gone. There is no way for me to know for sure whether or not the colloidal silver had anything to do with it. My roomate seemed to be suffering from the same symptoms as I was (sinuses, stuffy nose, sore throat, caughing and congestion). He tried the colloidal silver. He said he noticed a definite improvement in his symptoms within a few hours. I believe it works and that it is safe to use, but I guess each person has to make up their own mind whether or not to try it. It's certainly not a cure for HS, but may be beneficial for fighting harmful bacteria internally. No progress and no flare-ups in the HS. I spent the day doing research.