Hi to everyone and so glad that I discovered this website.
My story in brief:
I have never been known for looking at myself in the mirror and I turned up for work one day and a colleagues quietly enquired "what are those marks on your face". I proceeded to look in a mirror and saw lots of pimple like objects on my face. On further inspection the pimple like objects were also all over my hands, arms and basically all my body. It was 1986, I was 22 years old, living in a B&B with my 10 month old son. I had moved from Scotland to London 2 ½ years previous with my partner.
I had always been prone to tonsillitis and at the time of the “pimples” I had a flare up and was on antibiotics. When I got back home I stripped and looked in detail at the “pimples”. Some alarm bells were ringing in the back of my head. I decided to go to the doctors to check it out. My doctor had a look and she said “oh I think you have had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics”. Whilst sitting in the chair the alarm bells were ringing louder and I said to the doctor “could it be psoriasis, my father has it and there is a history of it in his family”. On further inspection my doctor said “yes I think you are right”.
I was referred to Dr Chi’s clinic at Hammersmith Hospital. Whilst waiting for my appointment, the “pimple” like objects were getting bigger and bigger and some of them starting to join together to make a mass of scabs. There was no part of my body not covered. I don’t know whether it was my ignorance or immaturity but I do not remember feeling at the time like a freak. I still carried on with my life, I did not change the kind of clothes I wore and basically carried on as normal.
My wake up call was on the tube going to work one morning. By this time I knew for definite that I had psoriasis. Luckily my face and hands had cleared but from the neck down I was covered. I had dropped my son off at nursery and got on the tube to work. Sitting in the tube I suddenly became aware of people blatantly starting at my legs. I had on a tee-shirt and denim short skirt. The more people were starting the more I became self conscious and started to swing my legs about (looking back I probably looked like a lunatic). People suddenly started looking everywhere else apart from me. I was so angry at the time. I got into work and went to the loos to try and work out why people had been so blatantly starting at me. I looked at my legs and they were full of red welt like scabs. This was the first time that it really hit me. Memories came flooding back. The times when we had been taken as children to visit an Uncle in Edinburgh. I remembered feeling scared and not wanting to go near him. Why, because he was covered including his face with psoriasis. He was my Dad’s brother. I went to pieces as it hit me that I could end up like that.
My psoriasis through the years has been at varying stages. I have been hospitalised, had tar day treatment on numerous occasions. At one time during a course of early morning tar treatments including my scalp, I continued to go to work wrapped in bandages. For all who have had experiences of the tar treatment, can you imagine the smell. I just acted blasé about it and as my then employer was big on equal opportunities, if anyone had said anything I would have quickly shot them down verbally. But I think at this stage people had the vibes from me that no do not say anything. At this time in my life I had split up with the father of my two children, was drinking a lot and anyone with Psoriasis knows what whisky does to the skin. But the emotional upheaval I experienced at the time made me very “right on” about my psoriasis, actually quite obnoxious about it really. This stage passed and my psoriasis calmed down a bit. I quickly learned to read and understand my body. Maybe not always listening to it – I do still like a drink of whisky – but now I plan it and know that the next day I will be on fire – it’s a price I pay – I cannot be good all the time.
Nearly 16 years later I have just learned to accept that I am the way I am. I do not necessarily like it but hey there is only so many new treatments that you can try. I just got fed up with it all. You learn to cope – kind of. You learn the art of disguise, shopping for clothes, not for how they look but how they are going to help disguise the fact that you are like a snake underneath, constantly shedding your scales. You learn things like being handy with the Hoover; wiping round the loo area after you have been, the list goes on and on.
God I hope I do not sound blasé about Psoriasis. It is probably all a front anyhow!!
Well I had a wake call a few weeks ago. Basically my psoriasis was very bad again. If it is in areas where I can hide it by clothes then I would normally just put a bit of dovonex on it and E45. But no it came back with a vengeance, on my hands! You cannot quite hide these. I already accepted years ago that not only were my toenails not toenails but beds of psoriasis but I had to accept that I no longer had finger nails which most people would call “finger nails”. The skin on my hands apart had always been relatively ok apart from the initial onset of Psoriasis. But not now, they were bad. I tried to treat them with various lotions and potions but I just seemed to be making it worse.
Then I read about the new Dovobex which had come out on the market. I read loads of reviews and decided that I would give it a bash. Nothing ventured nothing gained. My hands were getting no better with my other lotions. I got the prescription from my doctors and started using Dovobex about 2 months ago. In the first week I could not believe the results. For the first time in 16 years I could actually wear and feel comfortable in shorts. My mother was visiting at the time and she could not believe my skin. The marks where the raised plaques had been were still there but NO SCALES.
During the 2nd week the results were still very good but, I felt as if my psoriasis was being suppressed. Areas where I did not have it started to have raised plaques. I persevered until the 3rd week. By this time I had areas the size of a 10p piece popping up all over my body. I visited the docs again. I asked them if by treating the areas of psoriasis with Dovobex is just suppressing it. My doc explained that it was unfortunate my I what I was experiencing was a reaction to the steroids in the Dovobex. The doc said that it was quite common for people to have a secondary reaction to anything that contains steroids. I had to stop using it. It was becoming near impossible for me to see any normally flesh on my legs.
Back to square one - but worse - you really cannot hide your hands
