Surgery eases the pain of this painful skin disease, a study finds
☕ Includes a question for the family ↓
Skin diseasesPart of a story we are following · 4 articles · See every update
If you live with hidradenitis suppurativa, a skin disease that causes painful lumps, there is real relief on the table. In a new study, surgery to remove the affected skin took people’s pain from about 7 out of 10 to almost none six months later.
Hidradenitis suppurativa, or HS, is a long-term skin disease. It causes sore lumps, abscesses and tunnels under the skin, usually in the armpits, groin and other skin folds. Pain is one of its hardest parts. Medicines help, but tunnels often need surgery.
How the study worked
Doctors at a specialized skin surgery unit reviewed the records of patients who had local surgery to remove HS lesions between May 2024 and May 2025. Patients rated their pain before surgery and again at 6 months, and the study looked back at those records. It was done at a single center, and it was published Oct. 26, 2026, in Dermatologic Surgery.
What they found
Pain on a 0-to-10 scale dropped from an average of about 7 (6.9) before surgery to under 1 (0.9) six months after. That is a drop of 6.0 points on average.
The relief showed up across all levels of the disease. People with more advanced HS saw even bigger drops in pain.
The researchers also used ultrasound to measure how far the tunnels under the skin reached. How long the tunnels were on ultrasound had no link to how much pain people felt afterward. When ultrasound found tunnels longer than the doctor could feel by touch, people had a little more leftover pain. That link was weak, and the researchers see it as a side finding to explore further.
Why does pain matter so much in HS?
Pain shapes the whole day for people with HS. It affects sleep, work, exercise and relationships. A treatment that brings pain down this far can change how life feels, which is why this result stands out.
What you can do today
If you have HS, start a simple pain log. Each evening this week, rate your pain from 0 to 10 and jot it down on your phone. Bring it to your next dermatology visit and ask whether surgery could be right for you, alongside your medicines. Clear numbers help your doctor see how much HS is costing you.
Talk about it at home
Some skin problems make lumps that hurt a lot. In this study, doctors removed the sore spots, and months later people said their pain was almost gone. Doctors asked people to give their pain a number so they could tell whether the treatment worked.
Question for the table
How do you think we can tell if something hurts less, when pain is something only you can feel?
Keep exploring
Copies this article and its questions so you can paste them into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or the AI you use, and keep the conversation going.
Questions and answers
- What is hidradenitis suppurativa?
- A long-term skin disease that causes painful lumps, abscesses and tunnels under the skin, often in the armpits and groin.
- How much did surgery reduce pain in the study?
- Average pain went from 6.9 to 0.9 on a 0-to-10 scale six months after surgery.
- Did surgery help people with advanced disease?
- Yes. Pain dropped across all severity levels, with bigger drops in advanced disease.
- Does ultrasound predict leftover pain?
- Only weakly. A mismatch between ultrasound and touch findings was linked to slightly more pain, but tunnel length alone was not.
