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PSORIASIS 101 part one by Wayne Emineth,  PA-C

One of the conditions I enjoy treating the most is psoriasis.  3% of the population has psoriasis and it shows up in many ways. It is a condition that could appear at any age from very young to the 60s. It can be as simple as pits in the nails or as complicated as scaly skin from head to toe which is the “heartbreak of psoriasis” to quote an ad from many years ago.  .

When I first start treating psoriasis the only tools we had were tar creams or soaks (phew!), UV light several times a week with or without chemical photo-sensitizers that you would bath in or take by mouth, and topical steroids. We also used several strong oral medications which were related to chemotherapy.  All of these helped but it was a constant battle to keep psoriatic skin normal.

Psoriasis is so common that lots of research has explored ways to control, if not cure, it. In the last 20 years we found topical Vitamin D to be effective, long before Vitamin D became a “hot topic”.  An oral derivative of Vitamin A was the first non-chemotherapy oral medicine found to be helpful, especially in the older population.  Most exciting of all has been the development of drugs which target specific areas of the immune system responsible for psoriasis. We have all seen the ads on TV featuring Phil Mickelson and urging psoriasis patients to “embrace the chance of completely clear skin”.  Living with psoriasis has completely changed with the introduction of this class of drugs.

 

More to come……