Psoriasis: The disease and its treatment
Psoriasis is a disease that is very common, around 2 to 3 percent of the world population has it. It is a skin disease that majorly affects the scalp, knees, hands, feet, and elbows. Psoriasis treatment in Commack can help in effectively managing the disease.
What is psoriasis?
It is a skin disease that is characterized by thick patches of red skin which might be itchy; they also have kind of silvery scales on them. It is an autoimmune disease that leads the body to attack some normally present substances in the body.
The skin has many layers, the first two layers are called the epidermis and dermis. Normally, the new cells of the epidermis constantly keep moving upwards towards the dermis and replacing its old cells, this whole process of replacing the cells takes about one month to complete. However, in psoriasis, this process happens very fast and just completes in 6 to 8 days. This is the inflammatory response of the immune system to protect the body.
This is a systemic disease that can be associated with some comorbidities like cardiovascular diseases such as high BP and also might put the person at risk of depression.
What causes the disease is yet unknown to the doctors, however, many are suspicious that genetics has a major role to play in it.
Treatment of psoriasis
Once the disease is clinically diagnosed by the doctor, they start with the treatment which aims at slowing down the process of growing skin cells and healing the present patches. There are several treatment options available, like creams and ointments, oral medication, injected medication, and light therapy.
The treatments are chosen based on the severity of the disease and how the patient’s body is responding to the particular treatment. Let’s have a brief look at two treatments.
- Topical therapy: This involves treatments that are to be applied to the skin to help reduce inflammation. These include several available creams and ointments which might contain a combination of corticosteroids, Vitamin D, retinoids, salicylic acid, etc.
- Light therapy: In this type of treatment the doctor might choose one or several forms of natural or artificial lights which will be used in a controlled amount to treat your psoriasis. Many types of lights can be used in this therapy, for example, sunlight, UVB narrowband, UVB broadband, psoralen plus violet A, and Excimer laser.