Today marks the beginning of a month long focus on taking control of your psoriasis. The National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) produced this graphic with a comment on how meaningful treating my psoriasis has been for me:

In the past August was designated “Psoriasis Awareness Month.” Recently, though, the change from awareness to action made sense with the emphasis on doing something to make a difference in your quality of life. Now more than ever those of us with psoriasis have many more options to treat and manage it.

I know it’s easy to get discouraged, or get in a rut with psoriasis. My hope is that this month each peson with psoriasis feels empowered to make one change to better their health. My change? Is it cheating to say that I’ve been experimenting with my new phototherapy unit? If so, I definitely need to reexamine my stress levels as July was off the charts.

Things Change, Clear Can Happen

The NPF is sponsoring a number of activities around the theme “Things change, clear can happen” for Psoriasis Action Month. From the NPF:

Things change. Your symptoms change. Your health changes.

With advancements in the number of treatment options available, now more than ever, it is easier to treat psoriasis – and the results can be life changing. Regardless of the type of treatment (phototherapy, topical treatments, systemic drugs or biologics), patients who manage their psoriasis report a higher quality of life, less absenteeism at work and are more productive. Psoriasis Action Month focuses on empowering people with psoriasis to take control of their disease.

A good place to start is to take an online quiz to assess how much psoriasis impacts your life. I took the quiz and was not in the least surprised to find that I got “Severe impact.”

Consider Your Options

If your psoriasis is severe like mine you know it takes quite a bit of effort and energy to manage this unpredictable immune condition. But it’s eye opening to see all the options that are out there to at least try. Some old treatments can work again, too.

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As the calendar turned over to August this morning I thought about the long journey that took some fifteen years before I could find some semblance of psoriasis control.

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As the calendar turned over to August this morning I thought about the long journey that took some fifteen years before I could find some semblance of psoriasis control without overly worrying about what my treatments might be doing to my overall health.

Cyclosporine kicked me out of a horrible flare that left me nearly unable to function in the mid-2000s. It took over two years of trying this and that before I found cyclosporine. Those years I will never get back with much regret at lost time and opportunities.

But then I became somewhat dependent on cyclosporine. Every treatment I tried to get off of cyclosporine failed. I used it off and on at high and low doses for over a decade despite FDA warnings to the contrary. I did take breaks, but within a couple months into the break my skin raged with inflammation. Even biologics I tried only worked with cyclosporine, not without. My blood pressure began to rise along with my triglycerides.

Today I’m grateful for the many resources and ways I’ve been able to get under better control over the past year or so since I started taking Tremfya and using phototherapy. Some treatments, like Otezla, didn’t help me. Still, though, I appreciated the option to try something new even if in the end the results didn’t match expectations.

For me this psoriasis action month is about taking a step forward, courageously trying something new, and not giving psoriasis too much power in my life.

 

I look forward to sharing more of my recent treatment journey in a couple upcoming guest blogs, on The Itch to Beat Psoriasis on Everyday Health, Plaquepsoriasis.com, and here on Pso Howard!

This August commit to taking action to improve your life with psoriasis and please feel free share how it’s going.