Excerpt from the book
Psoriasis
Psoriasis is a chronic skin rash that is caused by a malfunction of
the metabolism. Ca. 3% of the world’s population suffer from this disease.
Psoriasis may appear in many different forms. As
inflammation of the skin, psoriasis may be limited to only the palms
of the hands or the soles of the feet, causing unpleasant development of
horny layers of the skin that is associated with deep cracks and pain.
It may be that only the elbows and knees are affected, which is
disturbing from a cosmetic point of view but does not cause further
impairment. Psoriasis may also occur only on the scalp. Those affected
in this way have dandruff, white scales falling from their hair and
gathering on their clothing. There are all imaginable degrees of
severity, from tiny areas of psoriasis spread generally over the body
to coarse, ugly and rough psoriatic plaques covering the entire skin.
Also, in approximately 30 percent of psoriasis sufferers, the joints are
affected. The pain caused by psoriatic arthritis
certainly is comparable to that of rheumatism but the joints are
destroyed much more quickly. This is because the cartilage in the
joints is damaged far more rapidly than in rheumatism and arthrosis begins
much sooner. This degeneration of the joint can hardly be repaired and
sometimes not at all. Psoriatic arthritis means that the use of the
joint is lost very quickly and, if many joints are affected, these
people very quickly become completely disabled …
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