Hidradenitis and Low Mood: What to Log

Updated 29 Oct 2026

Flare weeks are tracked in lumps, pain, and dressings. Mood can be left out, even though it can be what makes the week hardest.

This guide covers what to log about low mood with hidradenitis: urgent help, a daily mood score, the flare beside it, sleep and medicines, and what to bring to a GP. Your GP or care team decides the support.

Know where urgent help is

The NHS says support is available if you or someone you know is having a mental health crisis or emergency, no matter what you are going through, and links to where to get urgent help for mental health (NHS low mood guidance). It lists having suicidal thoughts or thoughts about harming yourself among symptoms of depression (NHS low mood guidance).

If you have those thoughts, contact emergency services or a crisis line in your country now. A log can wait.

For people in the UK, the NHS lists Samaritans on 116 123 if you need someone to talk to (NHS low mood guidance). In the US, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Save the number for your country in your phone today, so it is there on a bad night.

Beyond urgent help, the rest of this guide is about the slower weeks where mood dips beside flares and is easy to miss.

In Hidradenitis Journey, My Care Team keeps the numbers you would call.

Score your mood every day

The NHS says a general low mood can make you feel sad, anxious or panicky, angry or frustrated, and low on confidence and self-esteem, and can make you feel tired or cause problems sleeping (NHS low mood guidance). It says a low mood often gets better after a few days or weeks (NHS low mood guidance).

It says that a low mood lasting 2 weeks or more could be a sign of depression, and other symptoms may include not getting any enjoyment out of life, feeling hopeless, and not being able to concentrate on everyday things (NHS low mood guidance).

Each day, log a 0 to 10 mood score and one word for it, such as flat, tense, or fine. Count the days in a row below your usual. The 2-week mark is then a date on the screen, not a feeling.

In Hidradenitis Journey, the Daily check-in holds the mood score.

Log the flare beside the mood

The NHS says hidradenitis suppurativa can have a significant impact on everyday life, and that having to regularly change dressings and constantly live with the pain and discomfort can affect your quality of life and lead to depression (NHS hidradenitis suppurativa guidance).

Beside each mood score, log pain from 0 to 10, any drainage, how many dressing changes, and whether you skipped plans because of the flare. Weeks where mood dips with flares look different from weeks where mood dips on its own.

Both patterns are worth bringing. One points to flare control; the other points to support for mood itself. It can be both. Add one line on how the flare affected work, sleep, or time with people that day.

For drainage days, see hidradenitis drainage days.

In Hidradenitis Journey, the Flare Tracker marks flare days.

Log sleep, medicines, and what helped

The NHS notes that possible side effects of steroids for hidradenitis include weight gain, poor sleep, and mood swings (NHS hidradenitis suppurativa guidance). If you are on a steroid course, log its start and end dates next to your mood scores.

For low mood, it suggests talking about your feelings to a friend, family member, healthcare professional, or counselor, getting regular exercise, eating regular meals, and setting small targets you can easily achieve (NHS low mood guidance). It advises trying not to use alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, or drugs to relieve a low mood (NHS low mood guidance).

For hidradenitis, it advises stopping smoking if you smoke (NHS hidradenitis suppurativa guidance). Log one small target a week and whether you did it, plus sleep hours each night.

In Hidradenitis Journey, My Meds keeps courses and Weekly Goals holds the small target.

Bring the record to a GP

The NHS advises seeing a GP if you have had a low mood for more than 2 weeks, you are struggling to cope, things you are trying yourself are not helping, or you would prefer a referral from a GP (NHS low mood guidance). It says that in England, adults can refer themselves directly to an NHS talking therapies service (NHS low mood guidance).

Bring the mood scores, the count of low days, flare and dressing notes, sleep, and any medicine courses. Say plainly how many days have been low; the numbers back you up.

For short visits, see what to bring to a 15-minute hidradenitis visit. For the wider story, see rebuilding the hidradenitis story.

In Hidradenitis Journey, the Daily Journal keeps your words and the Doctor Report brings it together.

How Hidradenitis Journey can help

A notebook can hold one bad day. The harder part is keeping mood, flares, and dressings in one dated record.

Hidradenitis Journey is a personal hidradenitis tracker from Health Journey Labs on the App Store and Google Play. It records symptoms, medicines, test dates, and visits in one dated history. Below is what you can use and how each part helps:

• Daily check-in — A short guided pass across symptoms, mood, nutrition, sleep, exercise, meds, and external factors, including nodule pain, drainage, and skin-fold flares, so links you would not remember on your own show up side by side.
• Daily Journal — Freer notes, including voice when typing hurts, such as dressing counts, photo notes, and visit debriefs, that add detail a score alone cannot show.
• Flare Tracker — Mark a day clearly worse than your usual, with onset, sites, and intensity, so you can tell a one-off spike from a repeating pattern.
• My Meds — Medicine names and timing, so you can line up a start date or dose change with lump counts, pain, and sleep.
• My Labs — Result dates for swabs, blood work, imaging, and other tests, compared with how you felt in the weeks before and after.
• Weekly Goals — Set one small aim, such as a daily wash routine or looser clothing on long days, and see whether it held and whether flares changed.
• Learn — Short education topics on HS themes such as flares, sleep, pacing, and visit preparation.
• AI companions — Clara and specialist companions already see your logged history, which helps with visit wording or questions after a new diagnosis.
• My Care Team — A profile for each clinician, plus upcoming appointments and notes for each visit, used before, during, and after appointments.
• Doctor Report — Two views: the Appointment Planning Report helps you prepare what to ask, and Generate Report, opened from a saved doctor, builds a dated summary of your recent progress for that doctor.
• My Assessments — Structured check-ins that add context about you across weeks.
• Food Tracker — Meal and drink lines when food is something you and your clinician are watching alongside flares.
• Period Tracker — Cycle dates, so you can see whether new lumps cluster at a certain point in the cycle.
• Weight Tracker — Weight entries when weight is part of what you and your clinician are watching.

Everything you log builds one history. Guided forms include the key questions, and you can add custom symptoms when you need your own labels. Hidradenitis Journey is free to download.

Sources

• NHS — Hidradenitis suppurativa
• NHS — Low mood, sadness and depression

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