Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis – a dual challenge

[lightbox full=”http://www.askdrshah.com/app/psoriatic-arthritis/images/casephotos/5984-1.jpg”][/lightbox]Some patients present only with psoriasis on some parts of the body, only on the skin. Some patients might present with only some form of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis where only joints are affected. However, there are some patients who may present with psoriasis on skin as well as arthritis which is related with psoriasis; which is called as Psoriatic arthritis.

Patients having psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis pose a greater difficulty in its management and treatment.  It is much more complex a disease than treating only psoriasis or only arthritis in isolation. The complexity and the challenge in the treatment is because of the fact that internal changes within the body which are essentially immunological and genetic are more complex, more severe and more intense in the cases of psoriatic arthritis where by various parts of skin are affected as well as the joints and ligaments of body at various levels may have been affected along with the skin. The disease is definitely more severe in its nature.

The exact cause for psoriatic arthritis is not yet fully understood. However, the immunological parameters behind psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis are considered to be similar.

When it comes to the treatment of psoriatic arthritis the experience suggests that the psoriasis alone though difficult, is relatively easier to treat as compared to psoriatic arthritis; especially, when psoriatic arthritis has affected several or multiple joints to severe extent.

Conventional treatment:

Conventionally, the treatment for psoriatic arthritis consists of the use of immunosuppressive medicines such as Methotrexate and certain powerful anti-inflammatory medicines such as NSAIDS like Indomethacin etc.

Homeopathic treatment:

The homeopathic approach to the treatment of psoriatic arthritis is different. It is more totalistic whereby homeopathic medicines are selected or chosen on the basis of patients’ entire totality consisting of the study of all the skin lesions or the study of all the joint affections, the nature of joint affection, the extent of joint affection like inflammation or swelling or deformity etc. all put together. In addition to that the homeopathic case study entails the study of various other dimensions of patients’ constitution. The physical constitution as well as mental constitution or mental makeup as it is called where by the physician will study in totality various features of your physical characteristics such as one’s appetite, the strong likes and dislikes about certain food items, the thermal sensitivity, hormonal functions, the sleep patterns, the emotional makeup, the level of stress, the response to stress triggers, the extent of strong emotions such as anger, anxiety, grief, sadness insecurity, jealousy, fears and so on.

There is a well-defined method to evaluate the individual patient’s totality or the case. Based on the entire totality and also considering patient’s history of having any past diseases as well as evaluating patient’s family history of chronic diseases, like other autoimmune diseases, or major diseases like heart disease, cancers, diabetes asthma and allergies, certain severe infections, psoriasis, arthritis etc.  This gives a clue about the genetic pattern running in the patient’s body.

That forms essentially a homeopathic totality as it is called. Based on that, certain homeopathic medicines are selected and prescribed in certain potency or dose.

How effective is homeopathy for psoriatic arthritis?

Psoriatic arthritis as it is said earlier is a difficult disease situation. Homeopathy can manage it reasonably well; in our experience; if not a complete cure. Also, results depend on several factors like chronicity of psoriatic arthritis.  In the sense how old is psoriatic arthritis. The early cases of less than 6 months duration tend to response much better than the cases, which are extremely old of about 5 to 10 years duration.

The cases with minor affections of joints such as only one or two joints are affected verses those cases where multiple joints are affected the prognosis is different. Cases with minor joint affections would respond much better than the cases with severe and multiple joints affection.

Another factor, which determines the curability with homeopathy, is the previous use of immunosuppressive medicines. If the patient has not used major immunosuppressive medicines such as Cortisone or Methotrexate then the chances of recovery with homeopathy are relatively far better than in those cases where patient has used immunosuppressive medicines for a long time. Why is it so? That is because when the immunosuppressive medicines are used for a long time your immune system gets compromised. In fact homeopathic medicines are believed to be acting at immune system level or immunological level. When the immune system is terribly compromised then the scope for homeopathic medicines to work really becomes difficult. In other words it may take a lot of time. So, previous use of immunosuppressive medicines may pose a greater difficulty in the treatment of psoriasis with psoriatic arthritis.

How safe is it to use homeopathic medicines and conventional medicines together for psoriatic arthritis?

In many cases when the patients are on immunosuppressive medicines or the conventional medicines they have no choice but to switch over to homeopathy. In that case initially, we recommend them to continue with the conventional medicines. The conventional medicines cannot be stopped abruptly because it can lead to severe flare up of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.  So, initially, it is advisable to continue both the medicines and over the period of time strategically the conventional medicines could be reduced under observation. In many cases it becomes possible to reduce and to taper off the dose as well as to stop the immunosuppressive medicines. However, there would be some cases where body would react quite severely on tapering off or stopping the immunosuppressive medicines.  Such cases may be very difficult to actually switch over the homeopathy.

This is all about why psoriasis associated with psoriatic arthritis is more difficult to treat and its management in general.

[tabs type=”horizontal” ][tabs_head][tab_title]Testimonials[/tab_title][/tabs_head][tab]Ms. S.T.H., Mumbai
It has been a good experience in life. I was suffering from psoriasis and I was not aware of this disease. I was knowing that this was a skin disease but of what type that I was not knowing. When one day on internet I saw an advertisement of Life Force, I came here (Life Force) and within sometime I saw good result that my disease has improved and within a year it has gone well. It is just because of my doctor Mr. Rajesh Shah. Thank you very much sir.

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