If you suffer from psoriasis, there will come a point when your dermatologist says that there isn’t much more he can do. Having spent a small fortune on various lotions and potions, not to mention doctor visits, you will be told this is a condition you have to live with and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles – quite opposite of what you want to hear.

This is how Doreen ended up at my office – fed up and out of ideas. She was suffering from psoriasis, a skin condition that causes scaly, reddened, itchy patches of skin, which are typically covered with silver or whitish skin flakes.

Doreen’s seemed to be everywhere: on her arms, legs, ears and neck, and she found it very distressing because the silvery appearance of the condition made it so difficult to cover with makeup.

Worse still, when she did try to cover it up, her skin would almost always flare up. Most medications for psoriasis (like those for acne and eczema) are all about calming the inflammation and making the skin look less angry. But the skin is angry and covering it up or trying to soothe it with a cream, is much like trying to make one of your ailing houseplants look better simply by putting petroleum jelly on the leaves.

Yes, the plant might look shinier in the short-term, but you won’t have solved the problem of poor soil, lack of sunlight or not enough water. What’s more, by putting something on the leaves, you’re essentially stopping the plant from breathing. We too breathe through our skin.

In fact, our skin is our largest organ and a very important organ of elimination. We can excrete a surprising amount of toxins through our skin, and this is why all lotions are best avoided. Most of us have been convinced by the marketing teams of large cosmetics companies into thinking that we need to put something on our skin every day. I promise you, we don’t.
Clues to healing

But getting back to psoriasis, our first clue in beginning to heal it comes from the Eskimos, a sub-section of the world population that doesn’t seem to get psoriasis at all. Eskimos eat plenty of oily fish such as mackerel, sardines, salmon, pilchards, herring and eel, which are rich in two fatty acids known as EPA and DHA.

These fatty acids are converted in the body into substances called leukotrienes, which help to dampen the inflammatory processes that trigger psoriasis. That’s why eating oily fish every day or taking fish oils supplements can help to improve symptoms such as redness, itching and scaling. Nevertheless, for some people like Doreen, fish oils don’t provide the relief they hope for.

Food intolerance

This may be because food intolerance is also at play. Work by Swedish scientists has showed that psoriasis sufferers may be intolerant to gluten, the protein found in wheat, oats and barley. Their report, published in the British Journal of Dermatology, said that symptoms were significantly reduced in ninety percent of patients who followed a gluten-free diet for three months. This is one of the things that Doreen had to do.

Going gluten-free is a huge undertaking and involves the exclusion of foods like bread, breakfast cereals, pasta, cakes and biscuits. I strongly suggest working with a clinical nutritionist if you do decide to go down this route so as to ensure you don’t miss out on valuable nutrients.

I also ensured that Doreen had a healthy intake of certain other nutrients that are important for healing damaged skin including zinc (pumpkin seeds and seafood), vitamin E (nuts and seeds), selenium (Brazil nuts) and vitamin C (citrus fruits, berries, melon). Doreen also cut out all tea, coffee and other caffeinated beverages to avoid dehydrating the skin.

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