Psoriasis Treatment

Psoriasis is a skin condition which affects about 3% of the world’s population. The disease is usually not understood in its depth by many. The impact of the disease at all levels is pretty big and so it needs to be discussed from the inside out. Let’s begin..

What is psoriasis?

Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition which is a cause of an overactive immune system. This results into rapid build-up of skin cells. Once the cells starts building, they cause scaling on the skin’s surface.

Usually, skin cells grow in the deeper layers of the skin and eventually rise to the surface. Later on, they fall off and the process continues. Typically, the life cycle of a skin cell is one month. However, in people suffering from psoriasis since the production of cells is extreme, they do not have the time to fall off. As a result of which the cells start building up.

Psoriatic scales develop as thick, red patches and appear to be whitish-silver in texture. The condition causes inflammation and redness around these scales. Sometimes, these patches will crack and bleed.

Is Psoriasis contagious?

When it comes to psoriasis, the biggest myth is that it is contagious. It’s time we dig in the issue a little deeper.

Psoriasis is an autoimmune condition. Autoimmune conditions are the result of the body attacking itself. In the case of psoriasis, white blood cells known as T cells mistakenly attack the skin cells. This means that psoriasis isn’t contagious i.e. it can’t spread from one person to another. It’s a result of a person’s own gene makeup.

How do we know that we have psoriasis?

The most common symptoms of plaque psoriasis include:

• Formation of red, raised, inflamed patches of skin
• Development of whitish-silver scales on the red patches
• Skin becomes dry and may crack or bleed
• The skin around the patches become sore
• The area around the patches may start to itch and burn
• Joints become swollen and may even pain
• Nails become thick and pitted

Can psoriasis go away?

Psoriasis is a long term chronic condition. However, in many people it may clear up for years. In order to manage your condition, you should work it out with your doctor.

For diagnosing psoriasis, one of the following two tests may be conducted necessarily-

1. Physical examination: Symptoms of psoriasis are very easy to distinguish from other diseases with similar symptoms. As a result of which, most doctors are able to diagnose psoriasis with a very simple physical exam.
2. Biopsy: Sometimes, the symptoms of psoriasis are very closely related to conditions with similar symptoms. In such cases, the doctors are unclear about their diagnosis and hence they confirm the same through Biopsy. Biopsy is basically a process in which skin doctors take a small sample of the skin to test it in order to confirm their suspected diagnosis.

Different patients of psoriasis suffer from different intensities of the condition. Once topical treatments (which include-Topical corticosteroids, topical retinoids, anthralin, vitamin D analogues, salicylic acid, moisturisers) have been used, there are chances that a patient won’t respond well to them. As a result he/she may need to use injected or oral medications which are usually prescribed for short periods of time. An example of such medication is-

Light therapy- As the name suggests, this treatment involves curing psoriasis using light. This treatment involves using ultraviolent (UV) or natural light to do the same. The way this therapy works is that sunlight kills the overactive white blood cells which are attacking the healthy skin cells. This in turn will control the rapid cell growth. In order to reduce the symptoms of mild to moderate psoriasis, UVA or UVB rays may be used.

One thing needs to be cleared that food cannot cure psoriasis, what it can do is reduce its symptoms. This includes eating healthy and taking a low glycaemic diet. In the case of a patient suffering from obesity, reducing weight can help lowering down the symptoms of the disease

What triggers psoriasis?

No matter your condition regarding psoriasis is better than many, there are still some factors which can make it worse. These factors include-

• Stress- Unusually high levels of stress may increase the production of cells, making psoriasis even worse.
• Alcohol- High consumption of alcohol can trigger psoriasis flare-ups.
• Injury- Any kind of injury like an accident, cut or even a scrape can trigger the condition.

With all this, make small changes in your lifestyle that don’t disturb your condition like-

• Using deodorants meant for sensitive skin as they include less chemicals. Using a strong deodorant can aggravate the problem.
• Since psoriasis is not contagious, you can go swimming. However, the chlorine in the pool tends to dry up the skin. So if you are suffering from psoriasis, make sure to take a bath as soon as possible and finish everything up by moisturising your skin thoroughly.