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You may already be turning away from this article. This is probably the first time you've heard of this skin condition- and in fact, this is also actually my first time.
But people need to be informed of this condition. It affects 2-3% of the total human population, meaning that there are 125 million people out there with this horrible condition, and dealing with it everyday.
Like cancer, psoriasis has no cure, making it tougher to treat. There are some creams and antibiotics you can take to reduce symptoms, but the scaly red bumps directed outwards of the skin will never completely stop appearing and vanishing.
What is Psoriasis?
Psoriasis is a skin condition that affects mostly people with psoriasis in their family, or are prone to it from their ancestors. Even if they do have a history of psoriasis though, there is only a 3% chance of you developing it as a condition. Unlike viruses like the coronavirus, psoriasis is not contagious. If you hold their hand or hug psoriasis patients, you won't inherit their condition.
What causes Psoriasis?
The actual scientific cause of this condition is unknown. Scientists guess a combination of genes and triggers. Triggers would be certain unhealthy things you do to cause this condition.
Symptoms are more likely to rise during puberty or even later in your life like menopause(only girls). Pregnancy actually decreases the severity of your condition and may even disappear. The constant hormones shifting in pregnancy have the opposite effect than puberty and menopause.
According to https://www.medscape.com/answers/1943419-30264/is-psoriasis-more-common-in-males-or-females, females are more likely to carry the disease than men, having more hormonal changes I would guess.
Triggers
The aftermath of alcohol and smoking can indeed act as a trigger for your psoriasis. Smoking and drinking always have bad consequences.
When you get psoriasis, it's because your immune system gets messed up(we'll talk about that more in detail later), so things like stress and certain medications for other illnesses can be a trigger to your immune system.
Since it is indeed a skin condition, some things like too much sunlight and cuts, scrapes can be dangerous. The type of weather on any specific day can also cause your psoriasis to be more active and therefore be considered as a trigger.
Scientists believe that these triggers and some certain genetics may be the source of developing psoriasis. They are not completely sure though, but a safe thing would be to not to do the triggers you can control. Avoid doing these things at all times if you are prone to psoriasis, or just in general if you're a regular healthy person.
How does this disease affect other people?
There are multiple types of psoriasis- five to be exact.
Most of them are pretty much harmless and just cause red scaly bumps directed on certain body parts. Most psoriasis cases are like that. Sometimes, there are more serious where the bumps are found all over your body.
In other really rare cases, this disease can be deadly. So if you don't start treatment to stop it, it could eventually kill you.
I'm not going to dive into each one describing how each one is, as I pretty much gave you the jist of it in the paragraph before. Let's just say that psoriasis is not a fun disease to live with. This takes into consideration of constantly putting on skin cream, taking medication, and lots more. It's not like a walk in the park.
The Science Revolving Around it
You can skip this section if you're going to unquestionably drop to the floor in exhaustion the moment you read the first sentence. But to understand the disease more thoroughly, I would recommend you read this section.
Let's cover the basis here: your immune system is what helps stop bacteria from harming you, right? If there's a cold going around the school and someone coughs nearby or even on you, your immune system does the best it can to prevent you from having the same cold. Or, if you have a cut or scrape, your immune system helps the skin to make sure it doesn't get infected and become something more serious.
Most often, it succeeds, but can't constantly be 100% efficient.
Psoriasis is an autoimmune condition, this means that the body wrongly begins to injure itself. In more detail, certain skin blood cells in the patient's body start to shift in the way of their path. Instead of keeping the skin healthy, and clear of those red bumps, it does the complete opposite.
The skin cells though are not the culprit here. White blood cells called T cells attack the skin cells, therefore causing the symptoms of psoriasis and in result, red scaly bumps around different body parts where the T cells are attacking.
But T cells aren't really the culprit either. This process is a bit confusing. White blood cells(T cells) actually are supposed to benefit your health by destroying most bacteria and diseases inside your body.
With psoriasis, they get mixed up and start attacking the skin cells. With skin cells constantly being destroyed and sent into overdrive, they produce more quickly, causing them to build up and cause the bumps in strange places. I guess you can concur where in some rare cases, this can be life-threatening.
Is there a Cure?
Unfortunately, no. Psoriasis has no cure. Everyone who has this disease has to live with this disease for the rest of their life.
If you read my extremely scientific section previously, you would know what the medication needs to do, slow the production of skin cells, that would simply solve the problem. But it's not that simple, you can't just invent a medication that stops the production of these cells. That would require a high knowledge of science, which the human race has not achieved yet.
That doesn't mean that all hope is lost. People with this condition can still lead, well-rounded lives with the correct medication and therapy. I hope that at one point, scientists will be able to find a cure for this horrible disease and all diseases similar to it.
Information Credits:
I retrieved almost all my information from:
https://www.healthline.com/health/psoriasis#is-psoriasis-contagious?
https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/psoriasis/psoriasis-causes-triggers
Donate and Help:
Also, I have found a website that helps people with this disease by conducting studies and experiments to find a cure as soon as possible.
Donate and help people with this condition here.
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