I often get emotional when I talk to others about psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.  I remember being depressed and alone.  Confining myself indoors, to embarrassed to be seen in public.  Nonsense you say, well not to the person who suffers with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.  I get emotional because I know the difference.  Today I want to show you the difference.

This is a story about a girl I met a few years ago on my page Overcoming Psoriasis .  Helen told me about her psoriasis but never showed me until today.  For a guy, psoriasis has taken its toll on my self esteem.  I would imagine for a gal it’s ten times worse.  Here is a before picture of Helen’s leg. 

Helen has a form of psoriasis known as Gutate.  The onset of gutate is usually after a bout of strep throat.  Unlike plaque psoriasis, gutate shows up as many small spots all over the body.  They are for some very itchy, painful, and embarrassing.  What most people don’t understand us that this is just the visible surface symptoms.  The real problem lies well beneath the skin where the damage being done is unseen.  Often psoriatic’s feel tired and pain throughout the body. This is due to the wide range of inflammation affecting the organs an joints.  It wasn’t until recent that scientist’s discovered that psoriasis was actually a autoimmune disease.   Over the years Helen and I discussed treatments.   Because she is from the UK, our options here might not be the same there. 

Luckily for Helen, the medication I’m on became available for her in her country.  We shared a few words this morning about her progress. We also shared a few tears. Tears of happiness.  This is Helen’s leg today. 

She mentioned how happy she was and that she wanted to show off her gorgeous new skin.  The best part is that this is only after two weeks on the medication.   Let me quote her so you can understand her happiness.  ”

Yeahhh im hoping in a few more weeks it will be completely clear so I can get my legs out for the Christmas parties hahaha”
I assured her that she will be clear.  You see the Difference, not just in appearance but her attitude is one hundred times better.  We psoriasis patients hide… I seen this on Helen’s instagram which sums up how people feel suffering from this insidious disease.

This photo really says it all.  Now because of these new treatments I can show you Helen in a whole new light. 

Helen is an active member of our support group Overcoming Psoriasis click the highlighted words to enter our support group. 

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