This week is Psoriasis SpeakOut Week, so I wanted to post my experience with this condition since I have been posting links about supporting the Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis, Research, Cure, and Care Act.
Since nothing else currently works to cure this condition that has plagued me
for fourteen years, I will just bitch about it in a blog post. Fourteen
years ago on a lovely fall Bid Day, I felt the need to slide down the
mudslide at the KA house (shout out to all fellow Bid Day sliders
through the years) about eleven times in the rain and mud. This was the
year that the slide was really crappy, like just visqueen and Dawn (the
next year it was like a slide at Wild River Country). The next day, I
realized that I had scrapes and cuts all over my body. Several weeks
later, some of the spots were still there, so Melissa, my mom, hauls me
to the dermatologist in Ruston because she KNOWS that I have psoriasis.
My mom, my aunt, and my grandmother all have psoriasis. My dad's
grandfather, Papaw Frank, had psoriasis, and now, my dad has psoriasis. Therefore, my mom knew what she was talking about.
So,
off to the doctor we go, and what I learned there, kids, is that when
you drink 45 beers (exaggeration...the octopus funnel didn't arrive
until the next year if I remember correctly) and smoke cigarettes in the
back of a truck filled with ice and cans of "The Beast" in the rain,
your immune system gets pissed off at you. So, in the fall of 1998, I
was diagnosed with psoriasis.
I'm going to be honest, I don't remember them really bothering me for the rest of my undergrad years and even the beginning of grad school. I know they were there, and every now and then there would be more than usual...but I really was too busy to be concerned with it. I was not at all living a healthy lifestyle, but I was tanning all of the time which now I know is sort of helpful.
I graduated from grad school and broke off a very long relationship in May of 2003. That summer, though one of the most fun times of my life, was basically a really long party. I had gotten a job for the fall at ULM, but all of my friends were still in school, so even though we had all moved to Twin Oaks and out of our big party house, nothing really changed! One weekend in August, X-Tina and I journeyed to the Big D to visit Lex, and when we got back on Sunday I had a fever. The next day at work (shout out Lewis and Company) I felt like crap and had a really bad sore throat. In a matter of days, most of my body was covered in psoriasis.
Of course, I freaked out and went to El Dog, and Mom got me in to see her derm there. He gave me a steroid shot and told me I had guttate psoriasis which is caused from a high fever or virus. The shot didn't really work (I later found out that the steroid actually made it worse), so I found a doctor in Monroe. We will call her Dr. Pretentious. Since I was covered in red spots, I felt like I needed to get with the program of what the hell was happening with my body. At first, she was very helpful. She put me on antibiotics and gave me several prescriptions for lotions and creams. She also explained to me what psoriasis is all about. Here are the basics:
1. It will most likely never go away
2. It is an autoimmune disorder, which I like to dramatically remind Rob about to get out of doing things of to justify being irrational
3. My body thinks something is wrong so it is overproducing cells.
4. The most successful drugs are ones that are injected and some are used on cancer patients. These biological drugs screw with your DNA, and you shouldn't use them if you ever want to have kids (I am sure everyone has seen the ads for these on TV)
5. Things like alcohol, smoking, stress, bad diet, and lack of exercise make psoriasis worse (oh really, yeah, I'm kind of dating a bartender at Rabb's where I spend most of my time drinking Captain and Coke (not diet), we sort of lay around in our free time eating Sonic and watching football, I'm starting my first real job, I like to dance though, sooooo....)
I can't explain how bad this little guttate psoriasis episode was. My hands were peeling and hurt so bad. Psoriasis is associated with psoriatic arthritis (this is what Phil Mickelson has), so my joints were hurting really bad. So, here I am with red spots all over me, hands peeling and about to start teaching 18 years old...I was so terrified. Dr. Prententious really did help at first. However, one thing that she suggested is that I get sun, either from tanning beds or natural because I told her it really helps. The next visit, I waited two hours because she had started doing cosmetic procedures, and when I said I was still tanning, she freaked out and told me if I needed a tan she did spray tan for only 55 dollars a visit...what the hell Dr. Pretentious. So, I was done with her. The guttate psoriasis cleared up, but they have really never been mild since that happened.
I went to another doctor my mom found in Arkansas, we call him Doogie Howser because he looks so young. He was the first to stress how important it is that I have kids before I take any biological meds or injections. He was great, and I went to him several times. I went to another doctor who asked me "what I expected to get from the visit" if I wasn't interested in injections. I left her office in tears. Now, I have finally found a wonderful doctor. She started me on light therapy, which is like a tanning bed but only the good rays, and my condition has improved so much. We are doing my therapy as a "trial" to show the insurance company that I need a home sun lamp, so I have my fingers crossed that everything works out.
There have been times they have really bothered me. I have them on my elbows, forearms, knees, and the bottom of my legs, mainly the outside of my legs. I have dressed to cover them up; I have not gone to weddings before because I didn't want to wear a dress; I have cried about having them; I have worn jeans or long sleeves when it was hot as balls outside, which is all the time in Louisiana; and I have tried to be really funny when people ask me "oh my god what happened to your leg?" And trust me, there is always a jackass that is going to ask you what is wrong with you. One time, Rob and I came up with all of the things I could tell people; for example, "I was attacked by a wolverine" or "Someone threw acid on my legs." Someone always assumes that it is poison ivy too, so I have to explain that it is not poison ivy and not contagious. One time, one of the pedicure girls questioned me for 10 minutes before she would do a pedicure. I recently read where a woman was turned away from a spa because she has psoriasis; she is suing the shit out of the spa too by the way. There have been times that I have been just mad that I have to deal with them. I also get angry when someone complains about something that seems insignificant to me like a zit or something they don't like about themselves. All I can think is, okay assface, you think you have weird knees, well I have red spots all over my legs that sometimes burn and itch, so I win.
When my psoriasis flare up, I will go on these manic searches on the internet and through books to find home remedies or some miracle cure. I have tried almost everything, and I still don't know exactly what makes them better or worse. I do know that I have to relax. Stress is the worst possible thing, and since I started running in 2010, I can tell a huge difference. Luckily, I have a husband who could care less if I had one big red spot on my face for everyone to see (though he would probably make a joke that it is because I am from Arkansas). I have friends and family that have never made me feel self-conscious about the fact that I have psoriasis. I also think because I am older and sort of don't give a shit what people think about me anymore I don't worry about it as much. One thing that I do know is that when I read articles or search for "cures" online I always find pictures of people who have psoriasis much worse than I do. There are some people who have 90% of their body covered by plaques. This always makes me realize that my situation could be worse, and I would never want to make that person feel uncomfortable because the feeling that someone is making up assumptions about what is going on on your leg by staring at your leg really sucks.
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