When she got her period at age 10, her symptoms started to get a lot worse.
Now, Jenkins talks about what its like to live with HS onTikTok.
Heres her story as told to health writer Julia Ries.
Courtesy of Brianna Jenkins/pixelshot
I was eight years old when I got my very first abscess under my arm.
My mom thought it would go away with rubbing alcohol and a warm compress, but that didnt work.
I was diagnosed with HS.
When I was 14, the HS got worse and became so embarrassing.
I couldnt lift my arms.
It spread to my groin area.
I was alwaysworried about how I smelled.
When I was 15, I started getting bad headaches and my vision would randomly get blurry.
If my HS wasnt messing things up, then my brain was giving me headaches.
It seemed to get rid of them, but a few spots came back a couple of months later.
Turns out the procedure didnt help much.
The medication cleared up my skin and I finally felt good.
I still gotflare-upsduring my period but they were minor.
Id been a goody-two-shoes in high school, but now I had all this freedom.
I wilded out and partied with this IV in my arm.
I became so stressed out and fatigued.
Even though I had medicine that helped, my body slowed me down.
I still had HS.
I still had intracranial hypertension.
At one point, I got so stressed that I got very dizzy and nauseous.
Thats when the flares started up again.
My skin was so inflamed and theHS tunnelingstarted all around my groin.
The abscesses were larger, too, and they became unmanageable.
I pushed myself to keep going and told myself I could handle it.
After a few weeks, I called my mom and was like, I need help.
That calmed my skin down a lot.
Things were much better after that.
Im still on that one to this day.
It has been amazing compared to everything else Ive tried.
HS has done a lot of damage to me.
Im currently taking a break from school because of my health.
Im unable to go back on campus and walk from class to class.
Just trying to drag myself out of bed and do homework is exhausting.
Its my goalI want my degree, but my body doesnt.
I dont know when I will graduate.
I just know thatI willgraduate.
Sometimes it feels like my body is working against me.
Some weeks are harder than others and there are days when I wish I didnt have HS.
That I could be doing normal 20-something things like traveling, having a job, and dating.
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