Are You Paying Too Much for HS? Why a Root-Cause Approach Saves You Money

My name is Jaap, and I am a biomedical scientist that also used to live with severe Hidradenitis Suppurativa, the kind that takes over your life. Today, I am completely asymptomatic because I learned how to heal Hidradenitis Suppurativa from within. More importantly, I’ve had the privilege of helping many other individuals with HS get their lives back too.

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The Hidden HS Tax: New Research Reveals the Shocking Cost of Your Symptoms

If you’re an individual with Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS), you don’t need me to tell you this disease is expensive.

It’s not just the emotional and physical toll. It’s the constant, leaking drain on your bank account. The special bandages that insurance won’t cover. The co-pays for yet another visit to a dermatologist for hidradenitis suppurativa near me who gives you the same 10-minute speech. It’s the expensive soaps, the creams, the supplements you try out of desperation, and the income you lose from taking another sick day.

This financial burden is one of the most isolating and frustrating parts of the HS experience. We often talk about the physical pain, but we rarely talk about this pain. How do you find a way how to treat Hidradenitis Suppurativa when the treatments themselves feel like a financial trap?

Until now, this “HS Tax” has been a silent struggle, something we all felt but couldn’t quite quantify. A new study, hot off the press, has finally put a number to our lived experience. And it confirms what we’ve all suspected: we are paying a steep price for a medical model that is focused on managing our disease, not healing it.

Today, we’re going to dive into this research. We’ll look at the hard numbers, uncover the real reasons your HS is costing you so much, and discuss how the natural treatment of HS isn’t just a path to health, it’s the most logical path to financial freedom, too.

The “HS Tax”: New Research Quantifies Our Financial Burden

A brand new 2025 study published in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology gives us a new, detailed glimpse into this problem. A huge thank you to Dr. Delage-Toriel and their colleagues in France for conducting this vital research [1].

This isn’t the first time researchers have called for awareness on this issue. In fact, a 2022 systematic review by Dr. Tsentemeidou and colleagues had already highlighted the major HS-related expenditures, calling it a significant burden and a clear call for awareness [2].

What this new 2025 study does is give us fresh, specific data on the out-of-pocket expenses (OPE)—that’s all the money you pay directly, not what insurance covers. The researchers surveyed 1,255 HS patients about their spending on:

• Consultations (seeing hidradenitis suppurativa specialists)
• Hospitalizations
• Surgical procedures
• Medical treatments
• Alternative medicine

What they found was staggering. The average annual out-of-pocket expense for an HS patient was €531. That’s roughly $570 USD every single year, just in direct medical costs.

To put that in perspective, the researchers note this is 1.5 times more than what patients with atopic dermatitis pay and is on par with the costs for psoriasis.

This isn’t a small problem. This is a substantial financial burden. And as we’ll see, that €531 is just the tip of the iceberg.

Who Is Paying the Most? The Data Tells a Deeper Story

The researchers didn’t just stop at the average. They dug deeper to see who was paying the most. This is where the story gets really interesting.

Take a look at the data from their first figure.

Figure 1 by Delage-Toriel and colleagues:

• Figure by: Dr. Delage-Toriel and colleagues.
• What it shows: This chart breaks down the average (mean) and median (middle value) out-of-pocket expenses (OPE) in Euros for different subgroups of HS patients.
• Panel Breakdown:
  • Men vs. Women: On average, women (€546.4) paid significantly more than men (€483.7).
  • Hurley Stage: Patients with severe Hurley Stage III (€633.5) paid significantly more than those with Hurley Stages I & II (€433.9). This makes sense, more severe disease often means more aggressive (hidradenitis suppurativa surgery or hidradenitis suppurativa medication) interventions.
  • ALD Status: This is a French system (long-term illness) that is supposed to provide full coverage of medical expenses.
• Key Takeaway: The data here is shocking. Patients with the “Yes-ALD” status, who should theoretically be covered, still paid more (€563.8) than those without it (€507.1). This tells us that even in a system with a “safety net,” the costs of HS are so unique and persistent that they fall right through the cracks.

But the most powerful findings came from their second analysis, where they tried to find the strongest predictors of high costs.

Figure 2 by Delage-Toriel and colleagues:

• Figure by: Dr. Delage-Toriel and colleagues.
• What it shows: This is a forest plot from a multivariate analysis. In simple terms, it isolates all the different variables to see which ones have the strongest statistical link to higher OPE. Any bar that is entirely to the right of the ‘0’ line is a significant factor.
• What didn’t matter: Look at Hurley III and Declare themselves to be ALD. Their bars cross the zero line. This means that when you account for everything else, disease severity and ALD status were not the main drivers of cost. This is a crucial “aha!” moment.
• What did matter: The factors significantly associated with higher costs were:
  • Being a woman
  • Living in an urban area
  • Having a higher salary (>$1500/month)
  • Score PUSH-D >= 14 (High Stigma)
  • Score DLQI >= 10 (Poor Quality of Life)
• Key Takeaway: Read those last two points again. The financial burden of HS isn’t just tied to the physicality of the disease. It is statistically and powerfully linked to the emotional and psychological weight of living with it.

This explains so much. That PUSH-D score, for example, stands for the Patient Unique Stigmatization Holistic tool in Dermatology. It’s a specific questionnaire designed to measure the heavy burden of stigma that patients with skin conditions feel.

A separate study by Dr. Fite and colleagues (using the same patient group) found that this feeling of stigma in HS patients was profound, and was strongly linked to factors like pain, discharge, and the disease’s impact on sexual health [3].

So, when we see High Stigma as a top driver of cost, it suggests we’re not just paying for the best antibiotic cream for hidradenitis suppurativa. We are paying to cope. We are paying for anything that might reduce the stigma we feel. We’re paying for the alternative medicine (which 28.7% of patients reported using), the better bandages, or any other out-of-pocket item that might improve our devastated quality of life.

The Knowledge Gap: Why Is Treating HS So Expensive?

This study brilliantly exposes the Knowledge Gap in conventional medicine. The entire model is downstream.

Think of it this way: Your body’s inflammation is a house on fire. The conventional approach is to wait for the fire to burst through the windows (a flare), then send a firefighter (your doctor) to spray it with an expensive foam (an antibiotic, a biologic, or surgery).

This is a reactive model. It manages symptoms. And as the study shows, it’s an expensive one:

• 67.7% paid for consultations.
• 61.2% paid for treatments.
• 25.8% paid for surgeries.

You are stuck on a hamster wheel of recurring costs. The model never asks: Why did the fire start in the first place?

This is the Knowledge Gap. Your doctor isn’t paid to spend an hour teaching you about the “upstream” factors: the hidradenitis suppurativa diet that could be fueling the fire, the gut health imbalances acting as an accelerant, or the chronic stress that’s like faulty wiring.

So, you’re trapped. You pay €531 a year, every year, just to keep spraying the foam, while the house continues to smolder.

And remember, that €531 is just the direct cost. The authors explicitly state that this study did not assess”indirect costs. So, what are those?

A 2019 study by Dr. Tzellos and colleagues looked at exactly this. They found that HS patients had significantly slower income growth and a much higher risk of leaving the workforce compared to healthy controls. They lost more workdays (18.4 vs. 7.7 per year) and had annual indirect costs (from absenteeism and disability) that were double that of controls [4].

This is the true, crushing weight of the HS tax. It’s not just the €531 you pay at the pharmacy; it’s the thousands you lose in work and wages. This is a financial trap, and as the main paper notes, it’s one that disproportionately affects HS patients, who are already more likely to be in a disadvantaged socio-economic profile, a fact confirmed by other research linking HS to low socioeconomic status [1, 5].

The HS Armor Philosophy: Investing Upstream vs. Paying Downstream

This is where we have to change our entire perspective on how to treat HS.

At HS Armor, we flip the model. We don’t just manage the “downstream” symptoms; we focus on the “upstream” root causes.

The conventional model is an expense, a €531 (and rising) annual fee for managing a disease that never gets better, not to mention the thousands in lost income.

The HS Armor model is an investment, an upfront commitment to building foundational health so the “fire” goes out for good.

Let’s be clear: no route is free. You will have to invest time and money to heal. But let’s do the math.

Our HS Armor community, which guides you through the entire root-cause protocol, costs €180/month. This might sound like a lot, but compare it to the conventional path. You pay €531/year in direct OPE forever. Add in the uncounted, devastating indirect costs of lost workdays, missed promotions, and supplements you’re just guessing on. The real cost of staying sick is far, far higher. And it has no end date.

Our approach is an investment with an endpoint: lasting remission.

We focus on the 5 Layers of healing to address the root causes:

1. Foundational Nutrition
2. Strategic Lifestyle Changes
3. Natural Therapies & Skincare
4. Accountability & Support
5. Targeted Medical Testing

This is an investment in your blueprint for health. The goal is to build such a strong foundation that the “temporary shields” of pharmaceuticals and surgeries become less necessary, or completely unnecessary.

When you are in remission, what are your annual HS costs?

Zero.

What’s more, by healing your body from the inside out, you’re not just saving €531 a year. You are actively preventing the development of other inflammatory comorbidities that travel with HS, like diabetes, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome. The costs of those conditions are astronomical.

Treating HS naturally is, without question, the most effective and affordable path to long-term health and financial freedom.

Key Takeaways

• A new 2025 study found that Hidradenitis Suppurativa patients pay an average of €531 ($570 USD) per year in direct out-of-pocket costs [1].
• This financial burden is not just linked to disease severity. It’s strongly associated with poor quality of life and feeling stigmatized [1], a burden confirmed in other HS-specific studies [3].
• The conventional downstream model traps patients in a cycle of recurring costs for symptom management (consults, drugs, surgeries) without addressing the root cause.
• The €531 figure is a significant underestimate, as it doesn’t include the devastating “indirect costs” like lost wages or reduced income [1], which other research shows can double the financial burden [4].
• Investing “upstream” in a root-cause approach (like the natural treatment of HS) is the only way to stop this financial drain and achieve lasting, affordable remission.

You Have the Power to Stop Paying the “HS Tax”

This research is validating, but it’s also deeply frustrating. It’s proof that the conventional system is failing us, leaving us to foot the bill for our own symptom management.

But this knowledge is power. You are not just your hidradenitis suppurativa symptoms. You are not doomed to pay this HS tax for the rest of your life. The study’s own data shows that the problem isn’t just the flares, it’s the impact on your life.

So, when people ask, can you cure HS? my answer is this: You can achieve a life where HS is an afterthought. A life where you are completely asymptomatic. I know, because I’ve done it, and I’ve watched countless others do it, too.

This isn’t a cure from a magic pill. It’s a permanent resolution achieved by rebuilding your health from the ground up.

The conventional path is an endless expense. The root-cause path is an investment in your freedom. You have the power to choose which path you walk. You can stop paying for the symptoms and start investing in your solution.

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References

1. Delage-Toriel M, Nassif A, Fite C, et al. Out-of-pocket expenses of hidradenitis suppurativa: A cross-sectional study. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2025. DOI: 10.1111/jdv.20827
2. Tsentemeidou A, Sotiriou E, Ioannides D, Vakirlis E. Hidradenitis suppurativa-related expenditure, a call for awareness: systematic review of literature. J Dtsch Dermatol Ges. 2022;20(8):1061-72. DOI: 10.1111/ddg.14796
3. Fite C, Taieb C, Nassif A, et al. Evaluation of stigmatization in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa using the PUSH-D score. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2025. DOI: 10.1111/jdv.20628
4. Tzellos T, Yang H, Mu F, Calimlim B, Signorovitch J. Impact of hidradenitis suppurativa on work loss, indirect costs and income. Br J Dermatol. 2019;181(1):147-54. DOI: 10.1111/bjd.17101
5. Wertenteil S, Strunk A, Garg A. Association of low socioeconomic status with Hidradenitis Suppurativa in the United States. JAMA Dermatol. 2018;154(9):1086-8. DOI: 10.1001/jamadermatol.2018.2117

Important Medical Disclaimer

1. Not Medical Advice: All content and information on this website is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice and is not a substitute for professional diagnosis, treatment, or consultation with a qualified healthcare provider.

2. My Role and Qualifications: I am a biomedical scientist and PhD candidate and share information from that perspective, combined with my personal experience as a patient with Hidradenitis Suppurativa. However, I am not a medical doctor, physician, or registered healthcare professional. Do not consider our relationship a doctor-patient relationship.

3. Consult Your Doctor: Always seek the advice of your medical doctor or another qualified health professional with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have read on this website. If you suspect you are experiencing a medical emergency, or a severe infection, do not rely on this website or the HS Armor community, please call your local emergency services or go to the nearest emergency room immediately.

4. A Critical Warning on Medication: Pharmaceutical drugs are a crucial tool in managing Hidradenitis Suppurativa for many people. Under absolutely no circumstances should you ever alter, reduce, or stop taking your prescribed medication without the explicit direction of the doctor who prescribed it. Doing so can be dangerous. Always consult with your doctor before doing anything related to your treatment plan.

5. No Liability: Your use of this website and reliance on any information provided is solely at your own risk.

6. Individual Results May Vary: Every patient’s biological baseline, genetics, and adherence to the protocol is different. Therefore, I cannot guarantee specific results, cures, or timelines for your Hidradenitis Suppurativa.

7. Scientific and Expressive Freedom: The articles published on this blog are distinct from formal peer-reviewed academic literature. They serve as an independent platform for my personal viewpoints, scientific hypotheses, and philosophical reflections as an independent scientist and HS patient. While grounded in biomedical research, I exercise a degree of expressive freedom to translate rigid academic data into insights from a patient perspective. These writings are my personal meditations on the science of HS and should be read as my individual perspective, not as universally accepted clinical consensus or formal peer-reviewed literature.