Sneaky Ways Psoriasis Affects Emotions (+How to Feel Better)
Dermatologists and psychiatrists agree: Psoriasis can significantly mess with your mind. Here, people who have the skin condition share how they've learned to thrive emotionally.
Elaine Scilley有lived with psoriasis for more than 11 years. In 2013, she found herself at her lowest point when her youngest child was three months old and breastfeeding. Overnight, a few small patches of psoriasis spread to cover her entire body, leaving only her face and neck clear.
“I began to hide my body from my husband as I thought he would be repulsed,” Scilley says. “I wouldn’t go to the beach or pool. I feltdepressed，尴尬，令人难以置信的孤独。“
根据这一点National Alliance of Mental Illness，美国5人中有1人将受到终身精神疾病的影响。其中一些人将与牛皮癣一起生活。事实上，与一般人群相比，牛皮癣患者的抑郁症患者更高。
银屑病is more than a skin condition，因为它通常被提及。这是一种慢性自身免疫性疾病，影响超过800万美国人，其中60％的人说their disease is a dominant issue in their everyday lives, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation. A report in theAmerican Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that people living with psoriasis had significantly more “mental distress” and were about 1.5 times more likely to report severe depression than those without the disease. This is the part that many people don’t see —the ways in which psoriasis can eat away at one's mental and emotional wellbeing.
克服牛皮癣的耻辱
Since psoriasis often presents as red, scaly skin lesions, it may elicit negative reactions, including fear and disgust. As a result, psoriasis can cause social stigma, leading to depression and isolation,据美国国立医学研究院的一篇文章称。
自从七岁以来，阿里希桥曾与牛皮癣一起生活。她最近发布了一封信，她在2011年写道，标题为My Suicide Letter. “I always wanted to model or play sports,” she says. “But with psoriasis covering 90 percent of my body, both of those options were out the window. I didn’t want to do anything. I was at a loss. Sometimes I think having psoriasis ruined my life.”
在她的信中，桥梁写道，“今天这一切结束，它由我杀死自己的一部分，感到如此惭愧。我杀死了我隐藏的那部分。......我杀了我的一部分，这不想向人们解释自己的病情。......我杀了所有伤害和恐惧！“她现在说，“这封信是我倡导的开始。”
The Tricky Role Psoriasis Can Play in Mental Illness
牛皮癣的人们表现出“焦虑，抑郁，自杀，职业障碍，社会障碍和关系障碍的增加，致密职能和亲密职能的增加，”理查德博士炒，坐在Yardley皮肤科的董事会认证的皮肤科医生和临床心理学家坐在国内牛皮癣基金会的医疗委员会。由于这些负担，牛皮癣的人往往“不知道他们的牛皮癣受损他们生活质量的程度。”
油炸博士还指出,那些最严重affected by their psoriasis are often selected for studies, leaving a potentially larger group of significantly affected individuals unspoken for. This may be one reason that psoriasis’s effect on mental health is frequently underestimated. “Fatigue, mild to moderate apathy, indifference, lack of pleasure in food, travel, and intimacy are often inappropriately attributed to age and other life factors,” says Dr. Fried. “It’s only after the refinement of the clinical symptoms of psoriasis and the detrimental effects of internal inflammation are understood that the[病人]可以意识到他们的疾病减少了他们的参与和生活质量。“
“Chronic illness …is a challenge for people emotionally and mentally. The day-to-day burden of the disease, like a lowered immune system and chronic fatigue, affects people’s mental states the most,” says Dr. Robert Goldstein, a psychiatrist in private practice who has treated patients with chronic autoimmune disease. “Chronic fatigue, which is a common symptom with those who have an autoimmune disease, can affect a person’s ability to travel, play sports, and participate in extracurricular activities.”
当次要症状和药物混淆你的心理健康时
People living with psoriasis are more likely to have other diseases that are linked to inflammation, such as heart disease and diabetes. “If you have a disease that creates enough inflammation that it’s affecting your heart, it’s also very hard for your brain to function well,” said Dr. Suzanne Olbricht, associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, in an article inHarvard Health Publishing.
缺乏答案也可以增加患者的焦虑。根据Goldstein博士的说法，患有自身免疫性疾病的人常常误导或保持未结社会，因为它们具有独特的症状和疾病的介绍。“制作适当的诊断可能需要数年时间......可以......预防[耐心]from accessing the treatment they need. That can take a toll on a person’s mental health and push them into isolation without a drive to seek the help they may need.”
Goldstein博士建议牛皮癣患者在自身免疫疾病中看到风湿病学家/免疫医生。他还强调，许多免疫障碍药物会导致精神病问题。“如果患者心理健康突然发生变化，”他说，“他们应该对他们的医生发表疑虑，立即看到精神卫生专家。”
Anxiety can sometimes prevent patients from understanding how to use their medication properly and from adhering to a proper medication schedule. “[That understanding]is vital in managing life with psoriasis,” Dr. Fried says. “After physicians demonstrate how medications should be used, ideally a nurse or another trained individual would be motivating for patients, especially during the initiation phase when they have yet to gain confidence in the effectiveness of their medication.”
Dr. Fried also encourages patients to seek out pharmaceutical information to provide concrete usage information as well as organizations such as the国家银屑病基金会提供广泛的信息和患者支持。
Hope on the Horizon
A recent study in关节炎护理与研究of the experiences of people living with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis identified six themes that characterize their typical emotional states. Among them were feeling “demoralized by inadequacy or burden of therapy,” which included “disappointment by unmet expectations of treatment benefit” and “disempowered by lack of personalized care.” The researchers concluded that improvements in therapies andtreatments(或者至少是现实主义者ic expectations up front), and psychosocial support could help limit depression and embarrassment experienced by some people with psoriasis.
沿途，牛皮癣的人们正在寻找削弱其身体和情绪症状的方法。“光疗效果持久效果[on me],” says Scilley. “I feel much better now. I was even able to continue breastfeeding my son during my light therapy treatments.”
Scilley认为，与牛皮癣一起生活的人意识到他们不是自己的重要意义。“寻找others who are living with psoriasisbecause understanding you’re not alone helps tremendously,” she says. “Also, don’t be afraid to talk to your doctors and voice your concerns if you feel a medication isn’t working.”
Bridges echoes the importance of finding a support system. “I cope by talking to people in my psoriasis network, expressing my hardships, as I did with my letter, advocating with the国家银屑病基金会她说，并积极主动地主动。““我曾经以为上帝把它带走，但现在我只是让他让我足够强大来处理它，并帮助鼓励其他人处理同样问题的人。”
