Psoriasis is a skin disease that is chronic and very difficult to treat. It looks very unaesthetic, can affect not only the skin, but also nails and joints, significantly worsening the quality of life of a sick person.
How is psoriasis transmitted? What is a multifactorial disease?
The specific reason could not be found. The main role in the occurrence of psoriasis is played by hereditary predisposition to it. This disease occurs most often in young people in whose family someone has skin manifestations of the disease. It is not the "psoriasis gene" itself that is inherited, but "breakdown", the body's predisposition to abnormal division of skin cells.
This disease, which is also called “psoriasis I”, often occurs at 16-25 years old, the probability of “getting” it if only the mother is sick is 8%, if the father is a little more (up to 14%), but if both parents are sick, then the “chance” increases many times - up to 60%.
There is also "psoriasis II", which appears more often in people over 40 years of age. Its causes are called stress, frequent use of strong alcoholic beverages,skin and joint injuries, past infectious diseases.
Is psoriasis contagious? What is psoriatic nail disease? Does it come from scratching your skin patches?
Psoriasis is a consequence of improper functioning of the body, as a result of which skin cells divide much faster than normal, and do not have time to be rejected in time. This disease is not contagious. As a result, the so-called psoriatic plaques are formed, which become more and more over time, they merge with each other and itch. Scratching a skin rash does not cause nail disease. Nails can be involved in the process on their own, due to the same disturbed cell division rate.
If it so happened that in one family, first one person fell ill, and then another, this means that the second had his own risk factors for this disease. And before blaming: “Now I have psoriasis too! What is this?!”, you need to remember if the second person likes to drink, if he lives in constant stress, if his next of kin are ill, and if his work is connected with skin injury by physical and chemical means.
What does psoriasis look like, what is psoriatic plaque?
Usually, psoriasis is a flat red rash that protrudes slightly above the surface of the skin. These spots tend to merge, are covered with whitish scales, and often appear at the site of skin injuries. This is what psoriatic plaques are. There are more such plaques in winter, tofly they usually spontaneously disappear.
If you take a clean slide and lightly scrape the plaque, then at first it takes the form of a stearin stain. If you scrape further, the film will be visible, and if you completely peel off the plaque, there will be a point area of bleeding.
Psoriasis on the legs is usually located in the area of the knees, on the hands - in the area of the elbows. Plaques can appear on the head, and in the groin, and on the buttocks.
Psoriasis: treatments
It is not always possible to immediately choose the treatment that will be optimal for a person, often you have to change therapy more than once or twice, combine its methods. The most effective at the moment is the use of ultraviolet radiation - PUVA therapy. Various ointments are also used, for example, Skin-cap cream is considered very effective according to reviews, as well as Psorkutan. Hormonal ointments may be used.
From systemic drugs, drugs made from vitamin A derivatives - retinoids are used. In rare cases, it makes sense to use hormonal pills or injections.
