Here Is What You Always Wanted To Know About Psoriasis – Part 2

More on the diagnosis and treatment of psoriasis. Helping you live with the condition as there is no permanent cure. Get the details here. 

Here Is What You Always Wanted To Know About Psoriasis – Part 2

Diagnosis

Physical exam

Especially if you have plaques on areas such as the following, it's usually easy for your doctor to diagnose psoriasis: 

Scalp

Ears

Elbows

Knees

Belly button

Nails 

Asking if people in your family have psoriasis, your doctor will give you a full physical exam. 

Lab tests

Removing a small piece of skin and testing it to make sure you don’t have a skin infection is the doctor doing a biopsy. To confirm or rule out psoriasis, there is no other test. 

Treatment

There are many treatments luckily. While others relieve itching and dry skin, some slow the growth of new skin cells. Based on the size of your rash, where it is on your body, your age, your overall health, and other things, your doctor will select a treatment plan that is right for you.

Including the following are common treatments: 

Steroid creams

For dry skin, a moisturizer

Coal tar (available in lotions, creams, foams, shampoos, and bath solutions, it is a common treatment for scalp psoriasis)

The cream or ointment (a strong kind ordered by your doctor. Vitamin D in foods and pills does not affect.)

Retinoid creams

For moderate to severe psoriasis the treatments include: 

Light therapy

To slow the growth of skin cells, a doctor shines ultraviolet light on your skin. Combining a medicine called psoralen with a special form of ultraviolet light is the treatment called PUVA. 

Methotrexate

This is only for serious cases as the drug can cause bone marrow and liver disease as well as lung problems. Patients are watched closely by doctors. It is possible that you may need lab tests, a chest X-ray as also a liver biopsy. 

Retinoids

A class of drugs related to vitamin A is these pills, creams, foams, lotions, and gels. They are not recommended for women who are pregnant or planning to have children as retinoids can cause serious side effects including birth defects. 

For serious cases that do not respond to other treatments, this drug made to suppress the immune system may be taken. Your doctor will closely watch your health while you take it as it can damage the kidneys and raise blood pressure. 

Biologic treatments 

To better control the inflammation from psoriasis, these work by blocking the body’s immune system that comes to be overactive in the case of psoriasis. 

Including the following are biologic medications: 

adalimumab (Humira)

brodalumab (Siliq)

certolizumab pegol (Cimzia) 

etanercept (Enbrel), 

guselkumab (Tremfya), 

infliximab (Remicade), 

ixekizumab (Taltz)

risankizumab-rzaa (SKYRIZI), 

secukinumab (Cosentyx)

tildrakizumab (Ilumya),

ustekinumab (Stelara)

An enzyme inhibitor. 

For long-term inflammatory diseases like psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, the medication apremilast (Otezla) is a new kind of drug. Helping to slow other reactions that lead to inflammation is the pill blocking a specific enzyme. 

Is There a Cure?

Even in serious cases, there’s no cure whereas treatment greatly reduces symptoms. Your risk of heart disease, stroke, metabolic syndrome and other diseases associated with inflammation goes down as recent studies have suggested that when you better control the inflammation of psoriasis. 

Psoriasis Statistics

Here is the list of people affected by psoriasis: 

Throughout the world, 2% - 3% of people

In the United States, about 2.2% of people

More than others, there are some cultures. Most common in northern Europe and least common in eastern Asia, psoriasis is found worldwide. 

While these statistics do come to be reliable, more cases are going undetected. Here is the exhaustive list but the statistics may go up as more people are unaware of their conditions and fail to get a diagnosis owing to their illiteracy due to the lack of knowledge about various kinds of the condition. Mainly people with no access to expert treatment are more likely to not report their condition. Thus, the numbers go down whereas in reality there is more suffering from anyone of these issues. 

Finally, How Do We Conclude The Discussion?

Always be confident that the condition doesn’t affect your mind or thereby discourage you to go into depression. Being a part of self-help groups can help you share your condition with people having similar issues. So, when you want help you can ring up a friend and always get to know how they are coping with the condition. Therapy can help you gain your mental strength as there are people who are hiding in their homes due to the embarrassing conditions. It may indeed take a toll on your health and mind, but always be assured you are not alone in this fight for healthy skin.

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