Is HS hereditary?

Living with HS is a nightmare! You may experience times in your life where you do not have a flare-up and are living basically pain-free and that is great! However, in my experience and listening to others experience the general consensus seems to be that, overall, HS sucks! The constant pain, the lack of treatment, the lack of knowledge by Doctors, the social anxiety it brings and the lack of social life are just a few of the side effects of this disease. Which brings me to the 'side effect' I will be posting about today. Children. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to have children. I didn't know how many, never thought of their gender, never imagined their names but I knew overall that I wanted children. 

However, lately, I have been thinking about the subject and wondering whether or not I should have children. I believe overall I would be a good mother, I would care for them, love them and protect them, but is that enough when I could be condemning them with a disease that has dominated my life? 

The majority of us have dealt with the lack of knowledge that our doctors have for us in relation to HS. Some of us were lucky and our doctors were able to diagnose fairly quickly, others were not. I feel fairly lucky with the fact that I was diagnosed at around about 16/17. Although, since being diagnosed I cannot honestly say that there has been much improvement in my quality of life. There is still so much information that we do not know when it comes to this disease, the main one for me being what causes it? 
I am aware of what Doctors say, I have heard it all and, to be perfectly, 100% honest. I honestly don't think they have a clue either. I have heard the 'causes' be from being overweight, all the way to its something in the water. But this isn't good enough, now I know in recent years there has been more research conducted into HS but it's still not enough.

When sitting down and thinking about whether it would be fair of me to have children? I started some research of my own. 

In the hours of research I conducted, I found a lot of contradictory information however, this is the information I found that was consistently stated; 

"In most cases, the cause of Hidradenitis Suppurativa is unknown. The condition probably results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Hidradenitis suppurativa has been reported to run in families. Studies have found that 30 to 40 percent of affected individuals have at least one family member with the disorder. However, this finding may be an underestimated due to HS being misdiagnosed as other skin disorders."

If you would like to read the article in full please click here.

So when thinking on whether or not it would be fair for me to have children, the information gathered did not help at all.. it was the equivalent of someone flipping a coin. Maybe it will maybe it won't. The only thing for me to do is wait. Although this seems unproductive there is no way of me knowing whether it is a good decision or not. I know of people who have had children without any problems for example; I have two brothers, who have no symptoms thankfully. Out of my whole family, there are only 3 of us ( that I know of) that suffer from HS. Overall, my answer is that I do not know whether or not to consider having children in the future. 

I know this post is all over the place but that is due to the fact that I am all over the place when it comes to this subject. If anyone has any experience with this subject i would really appreciate the help. My contact information can be found on the contact me page.

Thanks,
XOXO