Psoriasis - Knowing The Causes & Treatment Of It!

Psoriasis is a non-infectious disease of skin, characterized by well-marked red lesions which are dry with silvery white scaling becoming obvious only after scraping.

Condition is characterized by exacerbations (flare-ups) & remissions (temporary disappearance). It can be associated with nail changes like thickening, thimble pitting, involvement of finger joints & occasionally severe systemic effect like fever & chills.

The commonest site involved is elbows, knees & lower back. Other sites which are prone to be affected are -scalp marked scaling with lumpiness, nails, all over the body, palms, soles.

Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin condition that affects two to three per cent of the population. It can appear at any age, but mostly between the ages of 11 and 60. Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease, belonging to a group of conditions where the immune system is overactive and attacks its own cells and tissues. Normally skin cells are formed at the bottom of the outer layer of our skin. The cells go through a cycle of change, moving upwards through the layers to the surface of the skin where they die and are shed within a period of three to four weeks.

In psoriasis, this process is speeded up and cells can go through this cycle within three to four days. This causes thickening of the skin and its characteristic scaly appearance. Psoriasis affects mainly the skin and nails, but in six per cent of cases, it is accompanied by inflammation of joints, affecting mainly fingers, toes and the spine and is called psoriatic arthritis.

PROBABLE CAUSES OF PSORIASIS:

1. Mental stress, tension, suppression of desires, or frank grief. The grief or stress need not necessarily be present when the first lesion on the skin is seen. The patches are usually observed after the grief and stress are over, and this surprises the patient and hence the patient does not relate this disease to grief directly.
2. Have a strong family history of psoriasis.
3. In children, there need not be a history of mental agony or stress nor any reaction to drugs. It could be due to suppression of respiratory, gastric or skin disease

Due to its appearance, psoriasis can profoundly affect an individual, as people unfamiliar with the condition might think it is contagious. The sufferer may also have to endure adverse comments from others about their appearance, which can affect his or her quality of life immensely.

Conventional treatment 

There is a selection of conventional treatments on offer, starting with topical treatments, then phototherapy (light treatment) and then stronger, oral treatments. Topical treatments vary from simple emollients to moisturise the skin and alleviate itching, to salicylic acidbased creams, topical steroid creams of varying strength and tar preparations. Treatment with various forms of ultraviolet light is also used, Though these are effective in making the lesions disappear they could have horrible side effects.they are not treating the cause and hence the lesions are bound to relapse on discontinuing of the treatment.

Homoeopathic Treatment:

From the homeopathic point of view, we can approach treatment in different ways. We can treat the person as a whole and try to find a constitutional remedy with the aim of strengthening the organism generally. This means looking at not only the patient’s psoriasis symptoms, but also his or her general health and way of reacting to the environment, as well as what drives him or her on an temperamental level, Identify the Type Of Person suffering from that disease, Stimulate the immune system of the person and help him to cure himself.

Permanent Cure with Classical Homoeopathy

The basic difference is that the relapse of the disease does not follow any rule. The lesions or patches start disappearing in a haphazard manner or from down-upwards. This means that the patches on the lower limbs may go first followed by the ones on the hands or on upper limbs. True cure with classical homoeopathy always and invariably follows a fixed pattern. The pattern is based on HERING'S LAW of the direction of cure.

Hering's law of cure states that any cure should take place from above downwards; from centre to periphery; from inside to outside; from more important organs to lesser important organs; and in reverse order of appearance.

It is essential that the remedy induces the lesions to disappear first from the scalp (if present), then from the face, ears, then neck down to the trunk, then the arms should get clear before the forearms and latter to palms. On the lower part of the body to the cure of lesions should occur after the upper part of the body has started subsiding.

In cases where psoriasis has been suppressed to give rise to psoriatic arthritis, the disease manifestation inside the joints should reduce first and the inflammation should be transferred from inside to outside, on to the skin and therefore the pains in the joint shall go first accompanied by an increase in the skin lesions transiently, that disappear later on gradually.