So, after a disgracefully long wait I finally get my act together and get on with writing this thing. Let's start with some back story.
My psoriasis appeared when I was 17 years old. It started as dry scaly patches of dead skin on my elbows. Quite a common starting point I now understand. Within a few weeks it had covered my entire torso, scalp, arms and legs but not, mercifully my face or hands. Small mercies eh? It was thick, dry, itchy and unbelievably sore. The skin on my torso looked like a crocodile's and fell off in huge scaly flakes. If you've seen Austin Powers in Goldmember, you'll know exactly what I mean, only none of mine were 'keepers'. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable. I covered up, scratched until I bled and cried a lot.
I went to my GP who prescribed a steroid ointment (Dermovate), coal tar shampoo and bath additive. He told me that the steroid ointment was very strong and that I should use just one fingertip of the ointment to treat my whole back. It was laughable. It just disappeared down the cracks in the skin. I was using a large 100g tube a week and it should have lasted at least a month. I now know that what I should have been given was a proper moisturising regime, but more of that later.
The thing that troubled me the most though was my scalp. I had, and still have, a thick head of hair, although there's considerably more salt than pepper up there these days. The psoriasis covered the whole of my scalp and the scale built up until it was around 3-4 mm thick. More in some patches. Quite apart from the dandruff, which was embarrassing, it was incredibly uncomfortable and unsightly. It became visible through my hair and the coal tar shampoo turned it a horrible yellowy-brown colour. Like wearing a nicotine stained crash helmet underneath my hair. Incredibly distressing for a teenage boy.
To treat it, alongside the coal tar shampoo, I was given a scalp lotion with salycilic acid in it to break up the dead skin and allow the steroids access to the live skin underneath. It didn't work. It was like trying to break up a brick wall with a toffee hammer. What I resorted to was treating my scalp with steroid ointment, letting it soak in for a couple of hours and them combing the crust, and a fair amount of hair out with a steel comb. When I'd finished, my scalp was red raw and stinging. My hair was greasy and thin and no matter how many times I washed it, it would stay greasy for three or four days. But it was worth it because the crash helmet was gone. The relief was only ever temporary and I'd repeat this painful process about every couple of months, putting up with the greasy hair as a tolerable price to pay. In later years I have used the same method, using Emulsifying ointment instead to soften the scale and a flea comb to remove it. It still hurts like hell, but it washes out afterwards, so no greasy hair at least. It's a miracle frankly that I've never developed an infection in my scalp. This seems like a good time to remind you of my disclaimer on the first post...
The picture I am trying to paint here is of a young man with an extremely distressing and painful genetic skin condition getting little or no good advice from his GP. This was the very early 1980s and there is a very long way to go in this story, but I reckon that's enough for now. Stay tuned
