Psoriasis and quality of your life
As highlighted previously, there are five different types of psoriasis all of which range in severity from mild to severe. However, irrespective of which particular type of psoriasis you suffer from or the degree of severity, it is a fact that any or every psoriasis sufferer can find the quality of their life is adversely affected by their condition.
For many people, even those who suffer from very mild psoriasis, anxiety, stress, loneliness, low self-esteem and a lack of confidence are constant factors in their everyday life. As there is little difference between the prevalence in psoriasis in males and females, it is very easy for sufferers of both genders to feel that their condition makes them unattractive and unpopular.
Given that most sufferers develop psoriasis in their teens and early 20s, it is particularly cruel that the condition tends to develop at a time when most people want to be at their most attractive as far as the opposite sex is concerned. Consequently, although it is entirely possible that the condition will not be physically harmful in any way, it is perfectly feasible that it could be extremely damaging in a psychological way.
This contention is borne out by one study that suggested that thoughts of suicide are three times more common in psoriasis sufferers than they were in a directly comparable control peer group of non-sufferers.
Another extremely common emotional reaction that most psoriasis sufferers will recognize is embarrassment. To put it bluntly, it is simply not nice if you recognize that you have flaky skin and that other people are made to feel uncomfortable or even repelled by your condition.
As an example, many psoriasis sufferers also suffer from scalp psoriasis, meaning that most other people probably assume that you have extraordinarily bad dandruff. This is bad enough in everyday life, but it gets considerably worse if it becomes necessary to go to the hairstylist or barber.
And, whilst psoriasis is not contagious and it is therefore not possible for anyone else to ‘catch’ psoriasis from a sufferer, the rest of the non-psoriasis suffering world is not necessarily always aware of this fact. Consequently, most psoriasis sufferers report situations where other people seemed hesitant about shaking their hand or making skin to skin contact in some other way.
In addition, studies have indicated that people who suffer from psoriasis often find that life becomes increasingly frustrating as a result of their condition. This is because psoriasis often limits their ability to do the things that they did previously before the condition set in, sometimes making it difficult or even impossible to perform the basic tasks that are required as part of their normal working routine.
As a result of this, the National Psoriasis Foundation has reported that up to 56 million working hours are lost every year by psoriasis sufferers as a result of their condition. Furthermore, the same organization reported that more than a quarter of psoriasis sufferers had found it necessary to discontinue or change their normal routine daily activities as a result of psoriasis in a study carried out in 2002.
On top of all these psychological and emotional factors, there are of course many physical downsides to having psoriasis.
Itching to a greater or lesser degree is common for almost all people who have psoriasis, with cracked and bleeding skin being extremely common as well. For many people with psoriasis, pain is an everyday constant and some aspects of having the condition such as nail psoriasis can be very painful indeed.
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