How is Psoriasis treated?
To avoid misunderstandings, it is useful to know that there is no cure to completely recover from the disease, but in rare cases psoriasis heals spontaneously and never recurs. Precisely because it is a chronic disease, it requires constant care and must be followed regularly by a specialist.
Fortunately, nowadays there are various medications and therapies that can prevent the disease from getting worse and keep it under control. In general, the therapies are:
- Topical therapies: creams, ointments, foams, lotions, sprays, gels and ointments can be used for non-serious cases. The active ingredients of these products are applied topically. Vitamin D acts as an anti-inflammatory and reduces the proliferation of superficial skin cells and promotes their differentiation, and they have been developed to reduce calcium absorption to limit the risk of hypercalcaemia. Also useful are vegetable tar shampoos indicated for scalp psoriasis. To increase the efficacy of these products, especially in thicker skin, so-called occlusive treatment is used, i.e. compresses are applied to allow the active ingredient to penetrate.
Our proposal for the treatment of plaques is Lenipsor+ BioActive GEL made from 100% natural extracts.
- Biological therapies: these are considered intelligent or biological drugs that have proven effective when local and systemic therapies have failed. Biological drugs are obtained via DNA. These drugs act on certain components of the immune system and are more specific than traditional systemic drugs. These drugs exert an immunosuppressive effect by switching off a part of the immune system. They therefore have side effects that increase susceptibility to infections, and are contraindicated in pregnancy, for those with tumours, hepatitis or serious heart disease.
- Phototherapy: this technique uses exposure to the sun's rays. The important thing is to expose oneself gradually as a sunburn or burn could worsen psoriasis, so avoid exposure to the sun at peak times of the day, it is the most commonly used technique to increase therapeutic efficacy. We find the technique with UVA rays and recently the technique with UVB rays that involves 20 sessions in a month, which does not involve the use of photosensitising drugs.
- Traditional therapies: if you have a more severe form, traditional systemic treatments are used with drugs that are taken by mouth in the form of tablets or by injection and act from within. drugs for psoriasis contain cyclosporine and metotexate for psoriatic arthritis. These, however, can have undesirable effects such as nausea gastrointestinal disorders
Beware of cortisone: cortisone-based creams and ointments are effective but must be used for a short time and should be discontinued slowly to avoid pustular or erythrodermic presence.