Weather factors cause dry skin News-Leader.com, MO - Q: What are some ways to minimize dry skin? A: In addition to avoiding long, hot showers and baths, you can bathe less frequently, pat your skin dry and use ...
Boys behaving beautifully Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia - Nov 29, 2008 He uses the Dermalogica line at ZIPT and says a professional can assess your skin type. Kirkwood says the skincare basics include an exfoliating, ...
Ways To Great Skin This Winter The Epoch Times, NY - Nov 27, 2008 It's during autumn that you?ll notice the drop in humidity and difference in your skin the most. Sufferers of eczema and psoriasis find this time of year ...
There?s no cure for psoriasis, but there are treatments Daily Comet, LA - Nov 25, 2008 Psoriasis is a recurring, noncontagious skin disease that is characterized by raised, thickened patches of red skin covered with silvery-white scales. ...
My war against roses Globe and Mail, Canada - Nov 24, 2008 I know all the clich?s - beauty is skin deep, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Believe me, it's more than skin deep when your skin literally aches and ...
'Doctor fish' clear skin disease BBC News, UK - Nov 21, 2008 A woman with the skin condition psoriasis has travelled to Turkey to sit in water and be nibbled by flesh-eating fish in a bid to find a cure. ...
Be happy and you'll glow New Straits Times, Malaysia - Nov 16, 2008 The skin is connected to a central peripheral nervous system with ?emotional feedback? so basically what you feel emotionally is connected to your skin. ...
Because the Hard Knocks Are Sort of Like Psoriasis. Adrants, MA - Nov 21, 2008 Then each grabs hold of some part of themselves -- the homeless guy his torn jacket, the street kid his head -- and suddenly their skin peels off. ...
Source: Google News
Recent News and Articles on the Keywords: skin psoriasis + psoriasis + skin Related to the article below (Last Update: 8/5/2008)
August is Psoriasis Awareness Month MarketWatch - This summer, kids are getting kicked out of swimming pools all over the US, not because of their behavior, but because of how their skin looks. Psoriasis is ...
When health problems are skin deep Chester DailyLocal.com, USA - Aug 4, 2008 Psoriasis, a chronic skin disorder, is one such condition. August is National Psoriasis Month, and several area medical professionals recently shared their ...
The skin is a complex system Daily News Tribune, MA - ... some associated with other diseases (such as lupus, psoriasis or others) and there are other subtypes as well. A skin biopsy is done to verify the ...
Rashes, sores and bumps Herald.ie, Ireland - One often sees the first signs of psoriasis in a young person as a lesion on the genitals. The lesion may not be the typical plaque in the warm moist ...
Flesh-Eating Fish Perform 'Pedicures' NPR - Aug 4, 2008 In China and Japan, Garra rufa are known as "doctor fish" and are often used to treat skin problems like psoriasis. After reading about it on the Internet, ...
Stubborn Nail Problems Can Improve from Proper Diagnosis ... Newswise (press release) - Jul 30, 2008 Dr. Daniel added that psoriasis patients are prone to developing nail fungus. In fact, one study found that the occurrence of nail fungus was 56 percent ...
When Psoriasis Gets Under Your Skin and in Your Joints
More than 4.5 million adults suffer from psoriasis, a chronic condition that causes red, flaky patches of thickened skin. This uncontrollable overgrowth of skin cells can appear on the scalp, hands, feet and genitalia. But the lesions most commonly appear on the elbows, knees and lower back, which might give a hint as to why almost one third of psoriasis sufferers also have a compounding disease, psoriatic arthritis, which affects the joints and can be crippling.
Psoriatic arthritis, however, can be effectively treated in most patients if it is recognized early enough. Alan Menter, MD, chief of dermatology at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, Texas outlines this potentially disabling disease and the treatments available for it.
What is psoriatic arthritis?
Psoriatic arthritis is an inflammatory joint disease that is almost always associated with a skin disease called psoriasis. There are five different subtypes of the joint disease: anything from just a few swollen fingers and toes to more severe involvement of large joints to very disabling involvement where the hands and feet and the spine get pretty inflamed and chronically destroyed, actually. [It is mainly associated with a decrease in the range of motion, more so than pain.] So, it’s a whole range from very minor disease to very severe disease, which can be disabling in about 20 percent of patients.
What causes psoriatic arthritis?
As with a lot of other diseases, there’s a genetic component, but there’s an environmental component as well, possibly illnesses, infections, stress. There are eight different genes associated with the skin disease, and some of those are also associated with the joint disease.
Psoriasis an immune-mediated disease, whereby T cells, [normal immune cells] are increased in number. As these cells circulate into the skin and the joints, they produce a chemical by the name of TNFα. This chemical leads to the destruction of the skin and the destruction of the joints. But the exact trigger factors of psoriasis, outside of the genetic factors, all remain to be elucidated.
Does skin psoriasis always lead to psoriatic arthritis?
Psoriasis usually occurs five to ten years before the joint disease develops. One out of three patients with the skin disease will develop the joint disease. And the severity of the skin disease does not correlate with the development of psoriatic arthritis. In other words, you can get just a few small patches of skin disease but devastating joint disease, or you can get devastating skin disease with no joint disease. However, psoriatic arthritis is going to present as skin disease in nine out of ten cases before it ever occurs in the joints.
How can you tell psoriatic arthritis from other types of arthritis?
Psoriatic arthritis can look identical to rheumatoid arthritis. The big difference is that the blood test for rheumatoid factor, which is positive in rheumatoid arthritis, is negative in people with psoriatic arthritis. Osteoarthritis can also look like psoriatic arthritis in the early stages, particularly because they both affect the fingers and toes. There are some X-ray differences, too. Psoriatic arthritis has some very specific X-ray findings, which rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis don’t have. But probably the most important thing when looking for psoriatic arthritis is found on the skin. Obviously, if you have skin involvement, it makes it much more likely that the joint inflammation is caused by psoriasis and not by the other diseases.
How is psoriatic arthritis treated?
If you just have a little mild morning stiffness for 20, 30 minutes then a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), such as ibuprofen is fine. If it’s more severe than that, then you can take a drug called methotrexate, which has been used for 20 to 30 years to treat rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. The biggest downside of methotrexate, which works well in reducing symptoms, is that it doesn’t prevent the destruction of the joints from continuing. In other words, even though the inflammation may be reduced, the destruction of the joints continues.
Now we also have biologic drugs, and one type is called TNFα blockers. These drugs mop up the excess TNFα in the body. The only one currently approved [by the FDA] for psoriatic arthritis is Enbrel* (etanercept); the other biologics, such as Remicade (infliximab) and Humira (adalimumbab), are only approved for rheumatoid arthritis, but they are also being used for psoriatic arthritis.
How effective are biologic treatments?
The big difference with these agents versus methotrexate is that these agents prevent the progression of the disease. They appear to stop the destruction in its tracks. These treatments are all extremely effective in people with joint involvement. There are, however, some differences in the way that the skin lesions respond to those different agents. Sometimes higher doses are required to get a matching improvement in the skin disease. But the joint disease improves dramatically with TNFα drug
What advice do you have for people with psoriasis?
I think the most important message is if you have psoriasis, then at each doctor’s visit, the physician or the patient themselves need to be aware that they have approximately a one in three chance of getting the joint disease. And if a doctor is not asking, the patient has got to be telling the physician about symptoms such as, "I’m waking up with swollen joints. My hands are sore. My knees are stiff for about 30 minutes." so that they can be worked up for possible psoriatic arthritis. The sooner we treat them, the less disability there will be. At the moment, we think about one out of five patients with psoriatic arthritis will eventually be disabled. But if you start treatment early, we should be able to prevent disability in most patients.s.
