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Hidradenitis: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment
Last reviewed: 05.07.2025
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[ What causes hidradenitis?
The pathology is common, caused by irritating chemicals, most often petroleum products, excessive sweating, shaving hair in the armpits, skin rash, swimming in polluted water, endocrine diseases. Hidradenitis develops in middle-aged people, when the sweat glands of the apocrine structure are most active, in children and the elderly, hidradenitis is almost never found. The favorite localization is the armpit. Although it can form in the popliteal fossa, groin area and other places with profuse sweating.
Symptoms of hidradenitis
Hidradenitis is usually located in the armpits, around the nipples, navel, genitals and anus. The symptoms of hidradenitis are polymorphic, since the inflammatory process affects many sweat glands with different stages of its development. It begins with itching, swelling and hyperemia of the skin. After 1-2 days, dense and painful nodules of 0.5-1.0 cm in size are formed in the thickness of the dermis. The skin above them is purple-red, fused with infiltrates and funnel-shaped drawn into them. By the 5th-7th day from the onset of hidradenitis, multiple openings open onto the surface of the skin, like fistulas, with foul-smelling purulent discharge. Subjectively, pain is noted, sometimes severe. In some patients, the disease begins acutely, simultaneously in both armpits, the body temperature rises to 38-40 ° C. With regression of the disease, retracted scars are formed. The process may recur.
The disease should be distinguished from colliquative tuberculosis and furunculosis.
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Treatment of hidradenitis
The same treatment measures are carried out as for a boil.