Psoriasis pet peeves. I’ve experienced a few, such as when people try to take advantage of my skin condition to sell me a product. Here’s another one: when people say psoriasis is only a skin rash. For years I’ve had people think it was a poison ivy rash or some other scary, I-don’t-want-what-you-have contagious ailment. No, it’s psoriasis, not contagious, but certainly not just a rash. Some years ago everybody focused on the skin or the joints. Today the fine tune focus centers on the immune system as a cause, with impacts on other vital organs, and the potential consequence of major illnesses. Hardly just a rash.
More Than a Psoriasis Rash
The title is scary enough: “Risk of serious illness climbs with psoriasis severity.” This Reuters article from last month outlined the findings of Dr. Joel Gelfand, associate professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The greater the severity of psoriasis, the greater risk for other illnesses. The list of conditions is sobering for those with severe psoriasis (more than 10 percent skin coverage) including double the risk of heart and blood vessel disease; “increased risk for chronic lung disease, diabetes, kidney disease, joint problems and other health conditions…”
More findings from their study outlined in the article:
Overall, the risk for any other type of serious illness was 11 percent higher for people with mild psoriasis than for their counterparts in the comparison group, 15 percent higher for patients with moderate psoriasis and 35 percent higher for those with severe psoriasis.
Patients with moderate psoriasis were 22 percent more likely to have diabetes than people without the skin condition, for example, while those with severe psoriasis had a 32 percent increased risk of diabetes.
Moderate psoriasis also conferred a 36 percent increased risk of diabetes with complications such as eye disease, while severe psoriasis conferred an 87 percent higher risk.
Moderate and severe psoriasis increased the risk of cardiovascular disease by 39 percent and 81 percent, respectively.
Does treating psoriasis effectively lessen the risk for these other major illnesses? The researchers aren’t sure and are looking into it. I certainly hope so.
The source article from JAMA Dermatology “Psoriasis Severity and the Prevalence of Major Medical Comorbity” concludes, “Physicians should be aware of these comorbid disease associations to provide comprehensive medical care to patients with psoriasis, especially those presenting with more severe disease.”
Taking a Deeper Look
Now when a well meaning acquaintance quips that psoriasis is only a rash, and if it’s itchy take a cold shower, I wince inside. I want to educate them right there and then that psoriasis is much more. I need to take a deeper look into to this fact too. If I focus so much on the skin, on how it looks and feels, I too stay on the surface of this disease. I miss out on the other impacts psoriasis has both emotionally and physically. It’s not just the physicians who need awareness about psoriasis’s greater reach into my health, body and mind, but I need that greater awareness as a patient too.
“It’s just a rash”–definitely a psoriasis pet peeve for me–and a wake up call to take a holistic approach to my health and well being.