Friday, December 12, 2008

Uncovering the Cause of Psoriasis and Discovering the Best Treatment (Psoriasis Treatment)

Psoriasis Treatment
Psoriasis is a serious, frequently-recurring, and relapsing skin disease. It is characterized by silvery incrustation in the affected skin areas. The skin of the scalp, back, elbows, and knees are the areas that are usually affected. The lesions appear as circumscribed red patches covered with overlapping, shiny, white scales which are continually cast off.

Statistics indicate that in the United States alone, approximately five million people suffer from psoriasis. Of this estimate, about one-half million are burdened by severe cases. If you are one of those people who are endlessly troubled by psoriasis and are dying to be cured of your malady permanently, you have to first understand the cause of this disease. The cause of psoriasis is not precise. Health records point to heredity as one of probable factors. An excess in the production of cells in the skin's outer nonsensitive layer results to modification in the skin. Under normal conditions, the cells are cast off in about 28 days. In psoriasis, however, cell life is much shorter, being shed in only about 4 days.

Most of the modern treatments developed to fight psoriasis make use of very active chemical agents. The bad news is that these substances restrain new cells from being produced. On the other hand, over-the-counter medications have been proven to be ineffective.

How severe psoriasis can get differs from one person to another. In the young stage of the disease, it may not be possible to determine the degree of severity it can get into. There are instances, for example, in which arthritis may combine with psoriasis, consequently affecting the joints of the spine, fingers, and toes.

A sudden onset of psoriasis may last only for a few moments, although attacks may occur repeatedly at intervals. Regular psoriasis treatment are likewise known to induce only momentary relief. In harsher, pertinacious cases, some skin-care specialists often recommend the application of any of the various adrenal-cortex steroids (specifically, a corticosteroid). But these cogent medications can actually cause serious side effects.

Recent researches have identified a person's lifestyle as a definite factor in the cause of psoriasis. This is the reason why health experts advise on giving serious attention to the promotion of good health and its sustenance. A person suffering from psoriasis must get sufficient rest and have a nutritionally-balanced diet. More importantly, know that the best psoriasis treatment involves only a few simple steps which you can take to stop your psoriasis at its root cause and eliminate it altogether for good.

Do you want to have a life-long freedom from psoriasis and stop it at its root cause fast, once and for all? Discover simple steps to eliminate your psoriasis and regain your health.

Psoriasis Treatment

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Is That Dry Itchy Skin Psoriasis? (Psoriasis Treatment)

Psoriasis Treatment

Usually dry itchy skin clears up on it's own when spring and summer comes though, because there is more humidity in the air, so your skin is naturally exposed to more moisture. The confusion comes though, for people who have mild forms of a skin condition known as psoriasis.

Mild psoriasis often flares up worse in the winter time, and heals seemingly on it's own during the summer time. The winter flare ups are caused by the same problems standard dry skin is caused by: Lack of moisture. The summertime relief however, is caused by more than just moisture in the air. In the spring and summer, most people get more sunlight. And the UV rays from the sun can clear up mild cases of psoriasis.

Now, psoriasis is actually a chronic, non contagious skin condition that's caused by a problem with the body's immune system. It can flare up at any time throughout a person's life, and it can be triggered by certain events such as major stress, trauma, injury or sickness.

When a human body is healthy, it will produce new skin cells about every thirty days or so. These new cells start deep below the surface of the skin though, and rise slowly over the period of about a month. While those new cells are rising, the existing surface skin cells are busy dying off. Within about a month, the dead surface skin cells will flake off and be replaced by the newly risen skin cells.

When a body has psoriasis however, the new skin cells rise to the surface very rapidly. In fact, they reach the surface in just three or four days instead of thirty, so the existing surface cells are not yet ready to start shedding. This causes a pile up of extra skin cells on the surface, and these can become thick, flaky, scaley skin patches on various parts of the body. These are known as psoriasis plaques or patches.

Dry skin can usually be treated easily by drinking more water, and using quality oils or lotions to moisturize the skin. Psoriasis however, cannot usually be treated with standard moisturizers. Some herbal bath soaks, creams and salves can help reduce the symptoms of psoriasis - in other words they can help reduce the amount of extra skin piled up on the surface, and they can help relieve itching and redness sometimes too. These same dry skin treatments however, do not usually cure the psoriasixs

Psoriasis Treatment

Monday, December 8, 2008

Which Psoriasis Treatments Work? (Psoriasis Treatment)

Psoriasis Treatment
When you suffer from psoriasis, you're constantly looking for psoriasis treatment that will actually work. And unfortunately this can be a long process of trial and error. You see, different people suffer from different degrees of psoriasis. There are even different types of psoriasis, and many people don't know this. Everyone responds differently to each treatment too, so sometimes a psoriasis treatment will work well for one person, yet not seem to make any difference for another.

Both children and adults can get psoriasis, but it seems to affect adults more often than not. Approximately 4.5 million people in the United States suffer from the disease.

With psoriasis, when the body's immune system over reacts to something, it starts producing new skin cells at drastically accelerated rates. Instead of those new skin cells taking a month to reach the surface of your body, they rise in just three to five days. Since this is not enough time for the existing skin cells to die off and start shedding, the skin piles up in the form of thick, scaley, flaky skin patches which are often red and itchy.

The thick flaky skin patches are seen in about 80% of psoriasis cases, but there are other forms of the condition too. Sometimes red blister like bumps will develop instead, and sometimes psoriasis looks like a skin rash. Because of these differences, and because psoriasis looks very similar to other skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis is sometimes not easy to diagnose.

Most people try to treat psoriasis using standard dry skin creams, lotions and ointments. Once they know they have psoriasis though, they have other treatment options open. There are prescription psoriasis treatment which can be applied topically, and these often help reduce the thickness of the psoriasis plaques as well as reduce redness and itching.

Not everyone responds well to the topical psoriasis treatment though, and in those cases the doctor may use UV light therapy in addition to those topical treatments. UV light helps kill the surface skin cells more quickly. As the plaques are thinned, creams and ointments are able to penetrate the skin better.

When UV light therapy doesn't work, or the case of psoriasis is quite severe, another treatment is to use immune suppressing drugs which are administered via IV or injection at the hospital or doctor's office. These psoriasis treatment are for the worst cases only, because they can have dangerous side effects of their own.
Psoriasis Treatment