My Life with P

This post is probably going to be a lot harder to write than most. I have been thinking about it for a while, I figure now is as good a time as any to give you some more information about something you may not know anything about. I am going to give you a little glimpse into something I live with. I’m going to try and not make this extremely long but at the same time say what I want to say.

I live with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Most people have never heard of it, and for the past 10 years of my life I’ve had to do the best job I could explaining what it is. I’m not sure how many people reading this interact with me enough to know about it, but even if you don’t it’s good to learn about it and what it does to a person. This isn’t a sob story or anything so I’m not going to get into the weird situations or huge decisions that have been made because of this, my main goal is to educate. I’m going to borrow a few things from an excellent site that I reference from time to time in order to better describe things.

Psoriasis is an immune-mediated, genetic disease manifesting in the skin and/or the joints. It affects more than 4.5 million people in the United States. In plaque psoriasis, the most common type, patches of skin called "lesions" become inflamed and are covered by silvery white scale. Psoriasis can be limited to a few lesions or can involve moderate to large areas of skin. The severity of psoriasis can vary from person to person; however, for most people, psoriasis tends to be mild.

About 10 percent to 30 percent of people with psoriasis also develop psoriatic [pronounced sore-ee-AA-tic] arthritis, which causes pain, stiffness and swelling in and around the joints. Early recognition, diagnosis and treatment of psoriatic arthritis can relieve pain and inflammation and possibly help prevent progressive joint involvement and damage. Without treatment, psoriatic arthritis can potentially be disabling and crippling. More facts about psoriatic arthritis

I guess people asking me why I am wearing long sleeve shirts in the summer time have led to this posting. Or maybe a young child asking what that is on my skin. Most people don’t know what this disease is unless they know someone who suffers from it. There are good days and bad days, but there’s always tomorrow.

If you know me then you know that I’m ok talking about almost anything, so if you have more questions about this then please feel free to send me an email at jccrider75 at yahoo dot com.
Here are a few more direct links that will give you info about this disease:

psoriasis FAQ
psoriatic arthritis