How I Beat Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis
Important disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nor have I ever played one. This is my story, and it may not be an effective path for you. Do your own homework.
My story starts a long time ago, when I was in high school. It was Senior Year, and the pressure was on to graduate, get accepted into college and figure out what to do with my life. Instead, I broke out into a nasty rash, more like scaly sores, on my back and arms. My Dad was an MD, and he prescribed a topical cream to relieve the itch. Turns out, he too got the sores when life got tough for him. Neither one of us apparently knew what we were facing, psoriasis.
Everybody knows about “the heartbreak of psoriasis” from the old Tegrin ads on TV, but most people don’t know what psoriasis is. We’ll get to that…
Fast forward a few years. I had graduated from college and grad school and was working my first real job. Lots of pressure — to impress my boss, make deadlines and achieve rockstar status, if possible. Once again, out of nowhere, the patchy sores reappeared and this time it was game on for them. All over my back, arms and legs. I really thought I had picked up some nasty viral infection or worse. Instead of doing the right thing and seeing a dermatologist, I called Dad, and he prescribed a new cream he had been using. Eventually, the sores went away, but it was traumatic trying to carry on a normal life with friends and co-workers covered in red, itchy sores.
In 2015 I was well on my way to retirement after a long career as a sales and marketing professional, then agency owner. I was attending and speaking at an agency forum in New York. Right before my talk, I started itching my arms, then my legs, and sure enough, psoriasis was back. I held my breath and made it through the trip, but now I was determined to fight back.
Back in Houston, I started visiting a few highly regarded dermatologists to figure out what was going on and what to do about it. Seemingly unrelated, I had also developed a chronic soreness in my right hip, which I treated with a steady flow of Advil. The first dermatologist diagnosed me with seborrheic dermatitis, which is a pretty common skin disease that mimics psoriasis in many ways but is far easier to treat. I was told to hang in there, and the patches would go away soon. Nope. They got much worse. Now we’re talking about sixty to seventy percent of my skin. I kid you not. I was miserable.
The second doctor got the right diagnosis, psoriasis, but told me it’s an incurable autoimmune disease, and the only thing I can do is to get more sun exposure to increase my vitamin D levels and dry up the sores. Seriously? Well, I finally did my homework on psoriasis, and yes, it’s an autoimmune disease, but they don’t know exactly how it starts or how to cure it permanently. Great. I asked around and paid a visit to one of the very best dermatologists in town, and his reaction was awesome.
He asked me all about my history with the disease, my lifestyle, work stress, diet and other health issues. I told him about the soreness in my hip, and he told me that psoriatic arthritis often accompanies psoriasis. He said I could possibly beat this disease by getting my diet and lifestyle under control, but I could get faster relief taking a drug called Otezla (apremilast). So I started taking Otezla, and sure enough, the patchy sores started drying up and disappearing within three months, which is pretty quick for a bad case of psoriasis. But there’s a catch. Otezla gave me chronic diarrhea and mild depression, which are common side effects. Not the way I wanted to live the rest of my life. I was also concerned about the future cost if my free co-pays ever went away.
Now I really started digging into the online literature. I joined a couple of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis forums to ask questions and share stories. I learned that they are autoimmune diseases often passed along genetically. My Dad and two sisters also have the disease, and who knows what previous generations endured? They probably just called it a rash back in the day and went on with their lives.
So, what is autoimmune disease?
It affects over fifty million Americans and has reached epidemic proportions. There are over a hundred confirmed kinds of autoimmune disease, with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis among the most common. Basically, they are all malfunctions of your immune system, causing it to attack healthy cells instead of invaders. Each autoimmune disease is characterized by the types of cells they attack. In rheumatoid arthritis, your joints get attacked. In psoriasis, your skin cells get attacked. In Crohn’s disease, your digestive tract gets attacked. At the core for all of them is systemic inflammation, most commonly resulting from infections, allergies, toxins or stress. Unfortunately, leaving autoimmune disease untreated increases your risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
Recently, we’ve learned that your gut is the epicenter for autoimmune disease. If you have been diagnosed with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), candida, leaky gut, or SIBO, you know the symptoms of poor gut health. Basically you have too many “bad” bacteria and not enough “good” bacteria in your gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Recent research shows a direct link between gut health, inflammation and autoimmune disease. But what causes this link to activate?
From my story, you can surmise that stress has always been a trigger for me, but there are other things as well. After my skin finally cleared with Otezla, and I weaned myself off the drug, I started paying attention to my diet and noticed that when I ate certain foods, my skin would start tingling and sometimes sores would appear. I kept a log of those events and started seeing real patterns. For me, the culprits were (in no particular order):
- Gluten rich foods like bread, chips, pizza
- Nightshades like tomatoes and peppers
- Sugary foods
- Dairy
I know what you’re thinking. What’s left to eat? That’s when I discovered a community of like-minded people with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis struggling to eat and stay sane in a world that feels like it was created to aggravate these very diseases. The bottom line is, you have to eliminate the foods that cause “flares” in your skin and other problems like gastrointestinal distress, brain fog, joint soreness and worse conditions, like diabetes. I found a number of resources on this “elimination diet” that were very helpful. Here are my top three:
- The Plant Paradox, by Dr. Steven Gundry
- The Autoimmune Protocol, by Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, PhD
- How to Stop Attacking Yourself: 9 Steps to Heal Autoimmune Disease, by Dr. Mark Hyman
I have been off Otezla since mid-2016, and since mid-2017, I am in complete remission for psoriasis and about 90 percent remission for psoriatic arthritis.
What’s my personal protocol for healing and preventing psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis? It’s been an evolution since 2015 but here are some of the things I stick with.
- Diet: low carb, high fat (Keto-Alkaline Diet)
- Lots of organic greens, MCT oil, olive oil, broccoli, sprouts, avocado, nuts (I’ll explain why this is not unhealthy in another post)
- Organic, grass-fed beef and pasture-raised chicken
- NO NSAIDS — no Advil, no aspirin, no Motrin, none of them — they destroy your gut health!
- Probiotics, pre-biotics, omega 3, multivitamin (B vitamins), vitamin D3, vitamin K2, L-glutamine, acetyl-glutathione, N-acetyl-cysteine, vitamin C (and more to be detailed later)
- Sleep: at least 7–8 hours — no food within 4 hours before going to bed
- Reduced alcohol intake to 50 percent of previous amount — I know, the other 50 percent needs to go too!
- Exercise: at least 30 minutes of walking daily, some high intensity training
- Meditation: thirty minutes daily
There’s more to this story, because I continue to do research and try different supplements and foods. I’m a bit of a lab rat in that sense, but that’s what’s worked for me. I continue to see both a functional medicine MD and a Dermatologist. Luckily, I have found doctors that aren’t afraid to try natural approaches to health instead of drugs or surgery.
I can’t say that I have ever felt healthier.
