Anyone with Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis?

I just developed tiny itchy bumps on my back. They are not colored but you can feel them. I am doing the elimination process to see what it is I ingested. I think it may be my vegetable powder - I am allergic to grasses and there are grasses in that powder. But I have never been allergic to this brand before. My point is this just arrived on me 3 days ago so I have had my eyes in buhner books. It was so itchy that last night I went back to benadryl. I take the liquid for children and take the amount for a 10 year old. I slept great and no itching.

Buhner says to lower histamines - butterbur 50 mg 3x day
Psoriasis - homeopathic rhus tox 30c - 4 pellets 6x day for 2 weeks, repeat as necessary.

I think I will request a back rub tonight with coconut oil. And Buhner suggests ingestion of coconut oil.

My head itches and my legs too. I think I ate something that I might be allergic to. I have not altered my protocol for a week. I did have a health food store kale salad and I wonder what the dressing ingredients were? At least the benadryl has it so I am not rubbing up against door jams like an old cow.

I'm so sorry, Annette! I have food allergies too, only they hit my digestive tract the most - so I'm in a bathroom for most of the day after I ingest either soy, MSG or too much lactose.

Thank you for Buhner's suggestions!! I use coconut oil in my cooking, as a skin moisturizer, and even on my hair as a deep conditioner (AMAZING results!!), so I likely get enough of it - and I also use a specific strain of probiotics (B. infantis), which clears it up quickly for me if I stay on it for about 4 - 6 weeks. So I don't need the treatment from Buhner for psoriasis, I'm looking for treatment (possibly) for psoriatic arthritis though.

Oh, and I use benadryl when I'm itching really bad too, but the itching is mostly reserved for my hands and feet when they break out.

And I still rub up against the doorways like an old cow!!! LOL! That's how I put pressure on those sore spots in my back from what I'm beginning to believe is psoriatic arthritis.

I think it's still a subject that needs to be brought up for those that are dealing with it. I didn't even know that there were others in our community that were dealing with psoriasis for sure.

Like I said, B. infantis has worked wonders for me.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23842110

If Bifido is helping, that means the flora in your GI tract is not optimal. I'd work on those bacteria in my GI tract which is most affected by dietary intake.

I'd use Lac-Hydrin over the counter for my hands in acute situations and look into supplementing Evening Primrose Oil orally.

I'd assess the ratio of Vitamin D through tests and evaluate my Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio.

sebreg said...
Hi Traveler! sorry to hear you are dealing with this. I have a friend with very difficult psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, but I don't think she has had lyme. Anyways, just throwing this out there, what has seemed to help her the most was cutting out caffeine, sugars, alcohol, and grains (including rice). Not sure if you are already following such a diet? It is rather tough but it's what gave her the most relief. I'll ask her if she is doing anything else but I know she isn't doing pharma stuff, that gave her no relief.

I hope you can get it under control soon!

Btw, thanks as always for being such a wonderful human being!

LOL! You are much too kind, Sebreg!! Thank you.

I'm sorry, we posted at nearly the same time and I didn't see your post until now.

I have adrenal issues, so no caffeine. I have an intestine that hates sugar of all types, so no sugar. I do drink once in a while, but not when having health 'flares' of any type. And I have been completely grain free for many weeks when it flared enough for my doc to see it on my hands - and told me that it was an unusual presentation for yet another thing! Ugh. Some days a normal body would be cool!!

I really appreciate your words and your thoughts on this though, Sebreg!! Thank you!

Georgia Hunter said...
If Bifido is helping, that means the flora in your GI tract is not optimal. I'd work on those bacteria in my GI tract which is most affected by dietary intake.

I'd use Lac-Hydrin over the counter for my hands in acute situations and look into supplementing Evening Primrose Oil orally.

I'd assess the ratio of Vitamin D through tests and evaluate my Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio.

Thank you for answering, GH! I'd like to pick your brain a bit if you don't mind! My GI tract has been permanently damaged from Lyme I believe. I have a lot of issues with nerve related things within the GI tract, and I already use kefir, ginger tea, digestive enzymes and bile salts every time I eat. I use B.infantis every time my skin breaks out with any type of psoriasis (I have several different types).

Can you tell me what Evening Primrose oil orally will do for me?

I do supplement with 6,000 mgs of Vitamin D oil daily, as per my doc and my levels are monitored each time I have an appt with her. Right now, I'm right in the middle of the range, so we are still working on it. My Vitamin D levels drop dramatically when I stop supplementing though, so I figure it's an absorption issue withing my GI tract - but what for sure, I have no idea. I'm actually wondering if I can treat this simply by building up my digestion/GI tract - but I'm not sure how. I don't have any doctors near here that would take this seriously, much less understand my desire to not only avoid suppressing my immune function, but treating this naturally. I won't use anything that will lower my immune function, because of the risk of being reinfected with Lyme and other diseases.

Also, evaluating my Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio - no problems, but what would that have to do with psoriatic arthritis?

As long as I get on the B. infantis quickly, I never have severe skin issues, and since I use coconut oil as my main moisturizer, I use it daily still, plus I have it in my diet (cooking and in place of butter/margarine).

I do feel very blessed that my skin issues are not any worse than they are, although I am quite concerned about the potential of psoriatic arthritis, so that is my main function with this post.

Collagen (gelatin and biosil) is for connective tissue. It certainly makes my nails, skin and hair nicer.

Calcium and Vit D for bones.

I love to sit and read a book and soak up the sun! Look at our animal friends and see how a cat or dog will lay on the floor where the sun comes in... I am that animal too. Especially if it is cold outside. I just sit in that warm sunny spot that comes in the window.

The only way to check Vitamin D is a blood test, that I know of anyway.

I do not think you can over do it with collagen supplements. I do MSM, biosil and Great Lakes gelatin. I do not have osteoporosis anywhere else, but my knees are shot to heck. Jumping in and out of a truck and running to the front door with a brown box totaled my knees. But I have been Suzie Jockette since I was 7 and played my first baseball game. If I had of made more money I would have insured my knees with Lloyds of London (the surgeon I worked for, his hands are insured). I put in my time and got full retirement, but what a price my body paid. It did give me compassion for professional sport people though. They are going to hurt like heck in their 50's.

And it gave lyme a very vulnerable spot to go. That is the sad part of lyme. It will point out your vulnerabilities in your body. So is that a blessing because you can now work on those? Or a pain in the part that you have to deal with?

Skin involvement:
1. Core protocol
2. With dry skin, add
a. hyaluronic acid, 1 tbl daily, and or
b. arctium lappa (burdock) root powder: 1 tsp 3x daily
c. Coconut oil: topically, liberally and
d. Coconut oil: internally 1 tsp to 1 tbls 3x daily
e. Cod liver oil: 1 tsp 2x daily
3. With psoriasis add
a. Homeopathic rhus tx 20 c 4 pellets 6x daily for two weeks, repeat as necessary

No Little League for me. Mom made the whole town create a softball league for girls. She got it so organized we had 4 teams! My Mom is the most wonderful woman I know. She named our team Sugar and Spice. Baby blue sweatshirts and levis. I played ball grade, high and college and then adult. When I had my daughter I had to get off shortstop and breast feed her in the dugout. LOL! Eventually my daughter and I played on the same team. Most horrible day in my life is they took me off short and put me on first. AND they put my daughter on short! I almost hung up my glove. But my batting average skyrocketed with only playing first base. My daughter went on to 3rd base and boy was she good, she did wear soccer shin guards though. Good memories of baseball!

I cut gym and the only sports I like are ones in which score isn't kept lol (I was Josephine Cyclist in the day ;)

OK...you're talking about joints - BioSil is good for joints (and bones...and nails, hair, wrinkles ;):

www.biosilusa.com/science/

"collagen is essential for strong, healthy bones and joints"


How about stuff like glucosamine? SAM-e?

ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/1/352s.short

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2230.1994.tb01139.x/abstract

archderm.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=550210

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-2494.2005.00274.x/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=

I don't believe that the GI tract can be permanently damaged from antibiotic therapy. Its cellular turnover is just too fast and adapts so well to what we eat. With that being said, if you aren't eating the foods that put the correct bacteria back in, I don't believe there will be much bacterial change. Two problems can exist in our GI tract involving flora, 1. The wrong bacterial composition and 2. The wrong bacterial ratios.

I ate an extremely high protein diet for years when I was weight training. It was very effective in doing what I wanted it to do, build muscle. I was reducing fat as well but the protein's job was to build muscle. Being around a lot of sick people, I would get sick a couple times a year on average and got the flu once a year since moving to GA. I was "normal." Now, I am not normal and don't get sick, not even the flu.

Flash forward to Lyme and a protozoal infection and things had to change. High protein caused me major issues and I sought out the best diet for me. I ate vegetarian for a month and that completely revamped my GI tract. When I say vegetarian, I mean spinach, olive oil, broccoli, squash, some beans and peas from my garden, and a few more vegetables. I'd eat raw spinach 4 times a day with almonds. That is all I ate. Nothing else! I don't consider this type of eating sustainable (or healthy long term) but I didn't need it to be. My GI tract got the bacteria from the raw foods it needed. I haven't been sick in 3 years because I limit my acid intake. I don't eat many processed foods and I don't eat meat 5 times a day like I used to. Optimally, I'd eat meat once a week but as my exertion level increases, so does my meat intake. I feel as my meat and acid intake dropped, I decreased the bacteria in my GI tract responsible for dealing with acids and replaced them with bacteria to process leafy foods and vegetables. It is my belief that my immune system functions better with this bacterial set verses one with bacteria to deal with meat or acid intake. Many on this board have GI tract pathogens and won't see the same benefit I did unless they remove the pathogens.

I'm torn on Vitamin D. It is my belief that the Vitamin D receptor can become blocked and "normal" levels are not sufficient enough. There is a conversion issue from some people and even if your levels are high enough, there are many cofactors that bind Vit. D and if they aren't present, it won't do its job. Vitamin K is one cofactor and it is made by bacteria in the GI tract that deal with leafy plants and vegetables. So by changing your GI flora, in essence, you can get more Vit. D activity. Add in the posts I made a few weeks ago about carnitine and meat intake and its effect on decreasing thyroid and a pattern develops. Your problems just seem to stem from a GI issue.

GH- thank you for those links - kind of like a Christmas present to me!! LOL!

Okay, back to seriousness. I absolutely promise I'm not trying to be difficult, but that's why I turned to the forum for this! This all started when I was really, really young - as in I don't remember a time I didn't have serious intestinal issues - so it has nothing to do with antibiotics or the herbs that I have taken as an adult. Those things actually have helped to ease my symptoms. I'm lost on what to do and where to turn. I will continue to follow my doc's advice for my adrenals and thyroid as she's been right so far!! - but I need more information than what she is giving me.


I will try the Evening Primrose oil for sure. The Omegas and the diet though, I just can't do simply because it makes my thyroid swell up quite a bit - as in I have great difficulty getting pills down at that point. It drives me nuts, as I LOVE fresh spinach and would grow it in my garden and feast on it every spring..... until my thyroid went wonky when my adrenals crashed.


The permanent damage in my intestines is more nerve related - not due to an imbalance of bacteria. I always hesitate calling it permanent, because I know that nerves can even regrow through new pathways if given time, but I have yet to see any improvements with my digestive issues even though I've healed from my infections. Even while feeling like a million bucks for that first year after I finished treatments and before my adrenals crashed - my digestive system still needed massive amounts of help. Things work, but not if I don't drink at least 64 ounces of water daily, take a combo of three herbs that ease intestinal cramping daily, probiotics from time to time, ginger tea with each meal and eating "just so" - high enough in fiber to keep things moving, but not too high so that I have too much gas (sorry, TMI) as that will set off the cramping and I'm back to square one - once I recover 3 days later after being bed bound and living with a heating pad attached to my lower abdomen. I've actually never heard or read of any one that deals with the intestinal issues I do.


I'm not opposed to vegetarian diets really, but I can't do any soy at all - not soy oil, not even soy lecithin some days. So that eliminates a lot of plant protein for me, and my doc gave strict instructions on keeping a high protein diet while I'm healing my adrenals right now, and I find I get headaches and get those shakes from the adrenals (those are scary as H-E-L-L!) if I don't keep that up most days. I can skip a day here and there, but that's it. As I said, I usually feast on salad every spring and then have lots of salad through the rest of summer and include spinach, kale and cabbage in soups, stir fries and other dishes, but haven't these last two years due to the need for high protein and the need to avoid spinach, kale and others (that I miss dearly!!).


LOL! and now I can't do almonds either due to my lower jaw being "fragile" due to bone loss and then dental implants being placed so I can support a denture, but now can't have anything other than the "soft" nuts like the raw Brazil nuts I eat for the selenium I need - and I'm still arguing with the oral surgeon over that! He says no nuts, so I asked about raw broccoli and he said that was okay, so I pointed out that raw broccoli is tougher to chew than the raw Brazil nuts. Yep, another thing that went over like a lead balloon. Oh well.