Treatment of psoriasis.
Psoriasis is a lifelong, recurrent, persisting but not life threatening  disease. Apparently, with the causes not been identified, a targeting treatment cannot be followed and it is not possible to cure psoriasis. Thus, the therapeutic goal is the control of psoriasis by easing the symptoms and improving the skin clinical image. This will result in improvement of the patient’s psychological condition and the daily life quality. By some experts this is called conservative treatment.
The means and methods that are used depend on the severity and the resistance of the disease to the applied therapy. Two additional decisive factors are how extensive the area of the affected skin is and where the problem is located. For instance, because of their possible side-effects, topical very strong corticosteroids are not suitable in cases where more than ten percent of the skin is affected or the psoriatic patches appear on the face.
Not every treatment is beneficial to all patients. Moreover, a regime that used to be effective in an individual in the past may not work anymore. Typically, a dermatologist starts prescribing mild topical medications. If they do not give the expected results or when psoriasis gets resistant, stronger drugs or different therapy will be needed. Occasionally, medications or methods that have been used at earlier stages and overtime got unsuccessful, they are applied again, since they seem to work again. This is called rotated treatment. Basically, there are three main therapeutical schemes for psoriasis; the topical therapy, systemic treatment and phototherapy. The latest, although it can cause potentially serious side-effects, seems to be effective in 80% of psoriasis cases. Depending on the clinical situation, more than one of the above regimes may be used at the same period of time.
|
