Living With Psoriasis

The Initial Outbreak

It all started years ago when I was about 17 or so. I went to bed feeling fine and woke up feeling as though my entire skin surface had been sucked on by mosquitoes. I looked in the mirror and turned away in horror as my entire face, scalp, and body had been covered in itchy sores. This came as a surprise, considering I’d had chicken pox just three years earlier and thought that it would never come back. My mother took me to our doctor, during which I covered my face as best I could with my hoodie and tried not to scare anyone away.

The sores looked similar to the sores on this guy’s neck, but more pustular and very similar to chicken pox sores in the initial stage.

The doctor prescribed a cream I remember as “Fugara”, perhaps it was hydrocortisone cream and something to stop the itching, but mostly I was told to bath in oatmeal and cover myself in calamine lotion.

Oh yeah and, by the way, that it would never fucking go away for good because there is literally no cure for psoriasis, which is what I had/have. The initial outbreak lasted about a week. I remember as I missed part of the week of school and almost didn’t want to go back after the weekend.

The Aftermath

The oatmeal bath/calamine lotion combo mostly helped with pain and itching, however, after the initial sores died down, what was left were these strange red patches of dry skin all over me. Some areas were clear, but others were covered in red, patchy, dry skin.

As I continued the prescribed treatments, the patches mostly went away. I later found out that I had what is considered a mild case of psoriasis, whereas many people have it covering a large portion of their body for a long time, mine mostly came in random patches of random areas, mostly my elbows, stomach, knees, and face.

For a couple years, I quit treating it with anything as the outbreaks stopped and I only had small patches on my knees and elbows that no longer itched. In fact, none of them itched anymore, so I sort of forgot about them.

The Return

Then one day I noticed my eyebrows itching and the skin around my eyes and forehead began to peel. My elbows got slightly worse as well. This outbreak worried me as I wasn’t at all prepared to deal with another like the first. Fortunately, the psoriasis has since stayed in particular areas such as my elbows and face.

There are, however, a few small patches that have formed recently. They tend to come and go. One on my knee () and one on my belly ().

None of these itch anymore aside from my eyebrows occasionally.

The Treatments

Over the last few years since my most recent, and seemingly final, outbreak, I’ve tried several treatments to varying degrees of success.

1. Lotions: I tried several lotions in the early stages, but for the most part, lotion does nothing to help other than make the skin flake less.
2. OTC: I’ve since tried hydrocortisone cream, which no longer helps as I don’t itch anymore anyway. Another OTC remedy I’ve tried is Psoriasin ( ), which seemed to help the redness and dryness of my skin somewhat, but also burned my eyes upon application and burned the skin that had already flaked off. I used it for a good month before stopping entirely due to the burning pain it caused and the lack of doing much.
3. Coconut oil: This is going to sound bizarre to some, but the absolute best treatment I’ve tried, and still use to this day, is none other than organic virgin coconut oil.
   This stuff right here changed the game for me. I went from my face being red and flaky, to having very little to no redness or flakiness. It also caused my eyebrows to stop flaking AND itching! At first it is a bit weird when you sweat and the coconut oil gets in your eyes, BUT IT DOESN’T HURT OR BURN AT ALL. The only side effect is slightly blurred vision, but your eyes will water and wash the oil out over the course of a few minutes and, after the oil settles in your skin, it stops sweating off.

The Present

I’m 25 now and I haven’t looked back. Nowadays my skin is looking great and has no flakiness or itchiness!

I hope this simple discussion helps others who have to deal with psoriasis daily. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t tried the coconut oil out and had it work. I’m a man of reason and logic and it made no sense to me at first, but I caved and tried it and I’m so damn glad I did because, not only does my skin feel and look better, but I’ve become more confident in my appearance and feel much more comfortable in public and at work.

Thanks for reading and good luck out there.

Cheers,
Your neighborhood P5ych0path.