In today’s society it is largely evident that image is everything. No one wants to have unsightly skin, or an unappealing appearance. Of course when your skin is covered with red patches and is dry, cracking or pitted this can severely affect your image.

If you suffer from these symptoms, then chances are you are one of the millions of people that suffer from a disease called psoriasis.

What is Psoriasis

Psoriasis is best classified as a non contagious, chronic, inflammatory skin disease that is characterized by an uncontrollable shedding of the skin.

With a skin disease like psoriasis, it is very easy to do some self diagnosis to determine whether or not you have an issue, because you can see when something is wrong with your skin.

Dangers of Psoriasis

Psoriasis is not life threatening, but it can severely threaten quality of life. While on the surface it may sound like psoriasis is just a cosmetic inconvenience, the fact of the matter remains that there is some pain associated with this disease. Itchy, dry, cracking skin can lead to pain, and in some more severe cases, bleeding. In fact, psoriasis has been ranked as more detrimental to quality of life than hypertension, citing not only physical, but emotional debilitation.

Signs of psoriasis

Tell tale signs of psoriasis are red lesions with silvery scales on them, dry cracked skin that bleeds and itches, burning skin in the infected areas. You may notice pitted and enlarged toe-nails and joint swelling also—depending on the type of psoriasis you are suffering from.

What causes psoriasis

Scientists believe that the cause of psoriasis is due to an irregular issue within the immune system that causes rogue activities by the T cells in your skin. These rogue cells trigger inflammation and excessive skin cell production.

To fully understand what that means, you need to first understand the basics of how your immune system works.

Your body’s immune system is largely comprised of white blood cells that are called T cells. These cells are the body’s defense against any sort of disease and infection.

In the case of a normal skin irritation, your immune system would trigger those T cells to rush to the scene and help produce new skin in an effort to get rid of the said irritation. Problem solved.
With psoriasis however, your immune system is tricked into thinking something is wrong with your skin cells, when in reality, they are just fine.

Once that false alarm is set off, your skin cells—with the aid of T cells from the immune system–start rapidly reproducing to take care of an issue that is nonexistent. As the cells are quickly produced, they rise to the skin surface, die, and begin to build up. The skin surface then thickens, which causes blood vessels to expand, and more blood flows to the skin, making it red in color.

Typically, the body takes roughly 26 days to generate new skin cells, but when you have psoriasis it takes about 5 days. With that said, skin cell production is about 400% higher when you have psoriasis, than when you have normal, healthy skin and an immune system that is not acting up on you.

How to prevent psoriasis from occurring

While there is no way to prevent psoriasis from being contracted, you can avoid frequent flare ups from occurring. Methods for preventing a psoriasis flare up include using skin moisturizers, using a humidifier, taking proper care of your scalp and skin, staying away from an environment that is cool and dry and eliminating any alcoholic beverage consumption.

It is also advisable to stay away from medication that can cause flare-ups. Common medications linked to psoriasis flare-ups include Lithium, Inderal and other beta-blockers, Cardioquin, Qualidux, Indochron and Indocin.

Methods for treating psoriasis—and their inherent problems

While there is no one sure fire way to treat psoriasis, several methods do exist. It is important to remember to consult with a doctor—specifically a dermatologist—to help develop a treatment plan for your psoriasis issues.

When treating psoriasis, your dermatologist will have three main methods of treatment for you: topical treatment, light therapy and oral medication or injections.

Topical treatments are the most common. Creams and lotions are used to treat moderate and mild cases of psoriasis, and sometimes can be combined with light treatment and oral medication to help find the right combination to treat your case of psoriasis. The drawback to topical treatments is typically most over the counter lotions and creams contain irritants and synthetic additives that can cause long lasting, damaging affects to the skin, as well as their known link to other underlying health issues.

Light treatment or phototherapy is gaining in popularity, despite the risks involved. The treatment is just like it sounds, using Ultraviolet Rays—whether they be natural or artificial—to help treat psoriasis. While it is effective, phototherapy does have side effects that are undesirable. Most of these side effects include other issues with the skin arising, including severe burning, wrinkling, aging and discoloration of the skin, and melanoma, also known as skin cancer.

Oral medication is pretty straight forward however it is typically only used in the most severe cases of psoriasis due to severe side effects that the drugs can cause. The most common oral medications prescribed by dermatologists are Immunomodulator drugs, Hydroxyurea, Cyclosporine, Methotrexate and Retinoids. The inherent problem with these drugs is the nasty side effects that may occur. Being that psoriasis can be linked back to your immune system sending incorrect signals to your cells, most of these drugs work to correct the immune systems errors. In doing so, they create side effects that render those drugs a non option for most people. All of the drugs can lead to problems with your blood, heart and cell production, and in most cases, these drugs are only taken for a short period of time, while alternated with other methods of treatment, to cut down on the likelihood of seeing damaging side effects.

While those three methods above may be the most common, they all come with side effects that are undesirable, and in many cases dangerous to the point of being life threatening.

Armed with that knowledge, many people who suffer from psoriasis are making the jump to an all natural products that are free of synthetic ingredients and additives, and are also free of any harsh side effects that will cause discomfort or other issues to arise.

To find out about one of the best all natural treatments available, click the banner below.