so confused about it all !!!

[Tyson]

Hi

welcome to PHO from me! like you I have P all over my body! and the worse area I find is on top of my hands as I feel its a constant reminder of this c**p disease  but hey lots of great support on here for you, and try to keep well, you will need to push hard fro certain treatments with Derms in my opinion, but don't lose faith, there are lots of treatments out there, I have had a fair amount of drug type treatment myself and once again I am on Cyclosporin, let us know when you get to see your Derm, GP's are useless when comes to dealing with P 

good luck

Tyson 

[Grumpy]

Hi Linsey, welcome and sorry to hear your psoriasis has been getting worse and you've been having problems with your unsympathetic GP.

You're not being needy at all - and getting it all off your chest is what this forum is for! People here understand what you're going through. I'm so grateful that I discovered this place! If you think you're being needy, have a look at my posts!

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From the sounds of it though, you should have been referred to a dermatologist ages ago! Once you get your appointment at the hospital with the dermatologist, then you'll effectively become their patient, so you shouldn't have to deal with your GP anymore for your psoriasis, except perhaps to get repeat prescriptions of creams and lotions, etc.

Once you begin seeing the derm, you'll still have to be patient as they work their way through the various treatments to ultimately find one that works for you. I've gone through the whole process from GP to being referred to the hospital, to 2nd and 3rd line treatments, none of which have worked (although that's not to say they won't work for you - everyone responds differently to the meds), and am now preparing to go onto biologics (4th line treatment). Depending on your hospital, they also might have more patients than available appointments, so there may be some waiting in between appointments.

I would avoid the many "miracle" cures that you'll find floating around on the internet. If you want to learn more about treatments and causes of psoriasis, I'd start here on the main PHO website and read some of the older posts on this forum. There are a lot knowledgeable people here and people who have lived with psoriasis for many many years.

Other authoritative sources of information are the Psoriasis Association and The National Psoriasis Foundation (an American organisation but very comprehensive information on their website), and for information on meds, my dermatologist and others likes to recommend Dermnet NZ (a New Zealand website, but again lots of detailed info on various meds).

In the meantime, do what you can to look after yourself. Since being signed off on sick leave, I've decided to finally confront my psoriasis and to do everything that I possibly can to help myself while waiting to go onto biologics. In the last week, these are the main changes that I have made, which I'm now keeping a record of so that I can track what might be having an effect and what isn't:

17 Oct: Cut out dairy (replaced with organic soya milk), reduced salt and sugar intake, reduced amount of processed foods, increased amount of fruits and veg (especially green veg) and oily fish, reduced red meats, cut out spicy foods

19 Oct: Increased daily fluid intake - minimum 2 litres per day (on the specialist dermatology nurse's advice - she explained that with severe psoriasis, we will be suffering from increased water loss)

22 Oct: Daily cod liver oil (containing 5 micrograms / 200IU vitamin D3)

24 Oct: Daily vitamin D3 (25 micrograms / 1000IU, Vitabiotics brand, bought from Tesco - others on this forum recommend a much higher dose). Daily bottle of  Yakult.

The reason for adding a vitamin D3 supplement was inspired by AussieGuy's brilliant posts:

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See also:

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It's too early yet to tell whether any of these changes are having any effect, but even so, it's got to be good for general good health anyway! There does appear to be slightly less imflammation, perhaps as a result of the combination of the removal of stress (no work!), rest, and the diet changes.

The one change in the last week though that has helped the most to ease the pain and discomfort has been discovering Dermol 500 (recommended by Aginoth here on the forum), and ditching the off-the-supermarket-shelf shower creams and face washes. See my previous posts for more info:

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This forum has also helped me no end. From being at my lowest point just over a week ago, I'm now feeling much more positive and hopeful.

Best of luck and keep us posted! 

[hubba]

Hi I have just registered here and I share your views about going through the daily ritual with cremes ect when it dont seem to last long and can be expensive and agree the answer is within, I found it helps a lot to use vasaline intensive creme because it has the quickest moisterising effect on dry skin I know of and that in itself gives me a sence of being in control of how bad it is allowed to get-thats the first step to treating yourself from within,-I find its the exstreme dryness of the Psoriasis area's that are the worst thing keep the dryness at bay and it makes a hell of a difference to how you feel and stops you scratching like mad when you should be dropping off for a good nights sleep. The attitude of your Doctors is very important if you want to make them sit up and take notice why not look up a few studys on your subject that you can ask about, it's a big subject so stay focussed on your core belief that the answers within.