Psoriasis And Psoriatic Arthritis - A Dual Challenge

By Deep Raval

Some patients present only with psoriasis on some parts of the body, only on the skin. Some patients might present with only some form of arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis where only joints are affected. However, there are some patients who may present with psoriasis on skin as well as arthritis which is related with psoriasis; which is called as Psoriatic arthritis.
Patients having psoriasis and arthritis pose a greater difficulty in its management and treatment. It is much more complex a disease than treating only psoriasis or only arthritis in isolation. The complexity and the challenge in the treatment is because of the fact that internal changes within the body which are essentially immunological and genetic are more complex, more severe and more intense in the cases of psoriatic arthritis where by various parts of skin are affected as well as the joints and ligaments of body at various levels may have been affected along with the skin. The disease is definitely more severe in its nature.
The exact cause for this is not yet fully understood. However, the immunological parameters behind psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis are considered to be similar.
When it comes to the treatment of arthritis the experience suggests that the psoriasis alone though difficult, is relatively easier to treat as compared to psoriatic arthritis; especially, when psoriatic arthritis has affected several or multiple joints to severe extent.
Conventional treatment:
Conventionally, the treatment for psoriatic arthritis consists of the use of immunosuppressive medicines such as Methotrexate and certain powerful anti-inflammatory medicines such as NSAIDS like Indomethacin etc.
Homeopathic treatment:
The homeopathic approach to the treatment of psoriatic arthritis is different. It is more totalistic whereby homeopathic medicines are selected or chosen on the basis of patients' entire totality consisting of the study of all the skin lesions or the study of all the joint affections, the nature of joint affection, the extent of joint affection like inflammation or swelling or deformity etc. all put together. In addition to that the homeopathic case study entails the study of various other dimensions of patients' constitution. The physical constitution as well as mental constitution or mental makeup as it is called where by the physician will study in totality various features of your physical characteristics such as one's appetite, the strong likes and dislikes about certain food items, the thermal sensitivity, hormonal functions, the sleep patterns, the emotional makeup, the level of stress, the response to stress triggers, the extent of strong emotions such as anger, anxiety, grief, sadness insecurity, jealousy, fears and so on.
There is a well-defined method to evaluate the individual patient's totality or the case. Based on the entire totality and also considering patient's history of having any past diseases as well as evaluating patient's family history of chronic diseases, like other autoimmune diseases, or major diseases like heart disease, cancers, diabetes asthma and allergies, certain severe infections, psoriasis, arthritis etc. This gives a clue about the genetic pattern running in the patient's body.
That forms essentially a homeopathic totality as it is called. Based on that, certain homeopathic medicines are selected and prescribed in certain potency or dose.
How effective is homeopathy for psoriatic arthritis?
Psoriatic arthritis as it is said earlier is a difficult disease situation. Homeopathy can manage it reasonably well; in our experience; if not a complete cure. Also, results depend on several factors like chronicity of psoriatic arthritis. In the sense how old is psoriatic arthritis. The early cases of less than 6 months duration tend to response much better than the cases, which are extremely old of about 5 to 10 years duration.
The cases with minor affections of joints such as only one or two joints are affected verses those cases where multiple joints are affected the prognosis is different. Cases with minor joint affections would respond much better than the cases with severe and multiple joints affection.
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