Supporting a Teen With HS

What you might notice

The visible skin is rarely the clearest signal; what changes in daily life usually is. Every point below can be observed without looking at anything.

• Repeated complaints about painful “boils”, “lumps” or “abscesses”.
• Difficulty sitting or walking, or a changed way of moving.
• Sport, swimming or changing rooms are suddenly avoided.
• Dressings or plasters are being used up regularly.
• Marks on clothing or bedding with no obvious explanation.
• More frequent absences, or withdrawal from activities.
• An appointment is refused out of embarrassment even though something is clearly painful.

Suspecting HS is not a reason to inspect intimate body areas. Say what you have noticed instead, and offer to help get an appointment.

How to raise it

The left column keeps the conversation open; the right column usually ends it. The difference is almost always about who decides.

• Helpful: “I’ve noticed this seems painful. Do you want help getting it checked?”

  Better avoided: “Let me see.”

  Why: An offer leaves the decision with the young person. A demand to see it takes away exactly the control they most need over an intimate part of their own body.

• Helpful: “You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to. We can ask a doctor to look at it instead.”

  Better avoided: “Have you been washing properly?”

  Why: The hygiene question is medically wrong, and it lands squarely on the shame a young person has usually already brought with them.

• Helpful: “This isn’t your fault, and you haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Better avoided: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Why: “Why didn’t you tell me?” lands as an accusation. The answer is almost always embarrassment, and that is a hard thing to say out loud.

• Helpful: “Do you want to ask your own questions at the appointment, or shall I start?”

  Better avoided: Answering on the young person’s behalf during the appointment without asking.

  Why: A young person who gets to speak in the consulting room learns to do it alone later. Over time that matters more than an efficient appointment.

• Helpful: “Tell me what actually helps right now — even small things.”

  Better avoided: Comments about weight, diet or smoking as an explanation for the condition.

  Why: Comments like these are heard as blame. What is medically relevant in an individual case belongs in the consultation — not at the kitchen table, and not on a website.

This section is communication support, not medical evidence. It reflects what young people with visible or intimate skin conditions describe as helpful or hurtful.

Clearing the path to medical assessment

In practice, support usually means: booking the appointment, getting there, sorting out costs and paperwork, keeping dressings in the house, and persisting when a first assessment does not help.

If a practice tells you it is “just boils” and the lesions keep coming back, that is a reason to seek a dermatology second opinion — not a reason to stop.

Supporting without taking over

Three places where well-meant support takes something away from the young person that should stay with them.

School

What the school needs to know is primarily your child’s decision. For many teenagers it is easier to hand over a short written note than to have the conversation themselves — there is a card here for that, built in the browser, and it does not have to name a diagnosis.

Treatment: what you can ask

These pages deliberately name no medicines and give no age-based treatment recommendations. The evidence base in younger patients is more limited than in adults, and age, developmental stage and other conditions all matter.

Our treatment pages explain which categories of treatment exist at all. Which of them are appropriate for your child is something to settle at the appointment.