This is a sponsored posting. I’ve been working with RidgeCrest Herbals sharing their supplements that are an everyday part of my life–including treating my Hidradenitis Suppurativa. These are my experiences and should not replace a visit to your doctor or medical practitioner.

I’ve had hidradenitis suppurativa since I was 13 and over the years, I’ve learned a lot of tricks to natural treatments. When I started having flares, my doctor would put me on antibiotics for 10 days and it never failed that I was on this constant cycle with Cephalexin. When the antibiotics didn’t work, they gave me surgical wash to keep my skin cleaner. Then they told me not to wear tight clothes or stay wet or shave or wear deodorant. I did everything they told me, and you know what?

I was still getting cysts and flares.

At the advice of my mom, I began tracking what I was eating and going through as I had my flares. I learned 2 things from doing this:

  1. Stress is a HUGE trigger for me.
  2. Dairy, nightshades and raw broccoli where big triggers for me as well.

via GIPHY

In an ideal world, I would have zero stress and I would be able to live forever without cheese. But that’s not me or the world I live in entirely–I can go without dairy, nightshades and raw broccoli. In learning what triggers my flares, I also learned what to do in order to prevent them from being completely infected, painful, and needing medical attention.

How I Treat My Hidradenitis Suppurativa Flares Before They Get Infected

Last year I learned a lot about inflammation in the body when I went to my functional healthcare appointments. Athena did such a great job with explaining to me how inflammation presents in the body so while I knew what caused inflammation in my body (dairy, nightshades, stress) and work daily to reduce it, there are just some times that my inflammation levels go haywire. This can be triggered by a stressful day with the kids, my favorite pizza, not being consistent with my daily supplements or because the day ended in y.

I can normally feel when the flares are about to happen.

But Aaronica, What Does This Feel Like?

I’m pretty sure that this is different depending on your body, pain tolerance, etc. but here are the things that signal a pending flare:

  • A cyst is present. I can feel the little (or sometimes larger) bump.
  • There’s a little pain or redness in the area.
  • I smell different. No one else can smell the difference but it smells like an infected version of myself.
  • I don’t feel 100% but I can’t pinpoint what’s wrong with me.

Again, everyone’s body manifests things differently but these are my symptoms. At the beginning of 2021, I started to really experiment with what I did when I started to notice to symptoms to see if I could catch my body in the act of behaving as if it has no act right. And I found my perfect formula!

Everything I Do When I Feel A Flare Coming On

Let me preface this by saying that a couple of these things I should be doing every day but I don’t because I’m human and struggle with consistency–don’t judge me!

My Ritual Vitamins, PhysiQOL, and Goldenseal + Echinacea

Increase my water intake drastically. I normally strive for 64-100oz daily and most times I just forget to drink water. So as I feel my hidradenitis suppurativa knocking on my pores, I’m like, “Oh snap, let me flush my system!” Why? Because I know that I’m about to be taking more supplements that are going to be helping my body fight off the infection and the more water that’s in my system, the faster it gets flushed out. The closer to 100oz, the better.

Double my dose of probiotics for 2-3 days. If you’re new here, I’m a self-proclaimed probiotic connoisseur and will only take certain ones. The Seed probiotics give me the fastest results so I take these on an empty stomach and let that marinate first thing in the morning.

Take 2 doses of Goldenseal+Echinacea daily for 2-3: To be completely honest, I normally do this for 1 day and it’s gone. In more potentially severe inflammations, I will do it for 2-3 days.

Take RidgeCrest Herbals PhysiQOLā„¢. Listen, this right here is the game changer. Before I added this to my pre-hidradenitis suppurativa flare regimen, I would still have them but they would be less painful. But when I added this? Y’all. No lie I wake up the next morning and there is no evidence that there was a flare that was trying to rear it’s ugly head. Let’s get into why this is though.

What’s In RidgeCrest Herbals PhysiQOLā„¢?

PhysiQOLā„¢ is one of RidgeCrest Herbals AWARD-WINNING supplements. The ingredients in this supplement were designed to:

  • maintain physical Quality of Life as we get older
  • support normal muscle recovery
  • reduce inflammation
  • support your body’s day to day comfort (pain management)

**Unrelated but also related: My mom has psoriatic arthritis and some additional health concerns. Her medicines had to be switched because of the potential for interference and PhysiQOLā„¢ helped her manage her pain with arthritis which is major since she can’t take Ibuprofen.

Let’s get into what’s inside this special formula… There’s a lot that you can read about here but I’m going to highlight some of the ingredients that really scream out to me:

  • Boswellia keeps your body free from excess inflammation.
  • Bromelain, yes, as in from pineapples! Also an inflammatory.
  • Ginger root: supports natural immunity and balance feelings of queasiness.
  • Indian Tinospora: helps keep your body free from excess inflammation
  • Lavender Herb: I think we all know how lavender is linked to relaxation and destressing.
  • Turmeric which is basically like the anchor on a super strong relay team. They source the turmeric from Curcumin C3 Complex for maximum effectiveness.

There are more ingredients than these but these here deserve special mention.

Whether you’re recovering from a super hard workout, navigating chronic pain, or preventing your next hidradenitis suppurativa flare, PhysiQOLā„¢ needs to be in your toolkit!

Hidradenitis suppurativa is my least favorite ailment but I've cracked the code to preventing full out infections and I'm sharing it here.