While psoriasis may only affect the surface of your skin, its impact can cut to the core. In many cases, the disease influences how others treat you and how you feel about yourself. So one of the major issues when treating psoriasis becomes not only treating the disease, but helping a patient through it with their pride intact.
One of the worst parts of having psoriasis is the way others may avoid you, thinking that psoriasis is contagious or a sign of bad hygiene. In a study that looked at 137 patients with moderate to severe psoriasis, 26 percent reported that during the previous month they had experienced an episode when "people made a conscious effort not to touch them" because of their psoriasis.
Such avoidance can be painful and makes it difficult to maintain a healthy self-image. You may feel self-conscious, helpless, embarrassed, angry or frustrated. And the more battered your self-image, the harder it becomes to expect that people will accept you. Constant worrying about people's perceptions and avoiding certain social situations may become a major source of stress in your life—stress that, ironically, has been shown to make psoriasis worse. Up to 60 percent of people with psoriasis identify stress as a key factor in worsening or triggering the disease.
Moreover, people with psoriasis are at increased risk for emotional problems such as depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide and body image issues.
Copyright 2009 NBC Health
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