Psoriasis
Perspectives
Perspectives on Psoriasis
Psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis in the conventional medical perspective is an auto-immune disease of the skin and
joints caused by the malfunction of the T-cells which are activated abnormally. These abnormally activated T-cells
accelerates the normal skin cell cycle of the body and proliferates them, thus the accumulating skin cells create scaly
surface patches which are the main symptom of psoriasis. Conventional medicine still has not been able to discern
why these abnormally activated T-cells become abnormal and cause these skin conditions in the first place. There
are
speculations about it and some known factors that increase the risk of psoriasis, but the actual origin of the
disease
is still not known.
The treatments for psoriasis that are available today are focused mainly on suppressing of the symptoms. Since the ‘why’ of the T-cell abnormal functions are not known, conventional medicine tries to treat just the symptoms and signs by blocking the mechanism that causes the proliferation of the skin cells. While these treatments for psoriasis do work, they are only a temporary treatment at best. Like most auto- immune disease treatments, conventional medicine focuses on relieving the symptoms, not the elimination of the actual origin of the disease. In Korean Medicine, we attempt to discover why the disease started in the first place and try to eliminate the source factor. We do this by comparing the body to nature. Psoriasis in the Korean Medicine perspective has the characteristics of dryness and heat. Since the skin patches are actually very dry and has a scaly feature to it, we could use the analogy of a dried out riverbed. By analyzing why a dried out riverbed is caused and devising a plan on how to fix it, we can also speculate on the why and how of treating psoriasis.