Practical tips in overcoming Chronic Skin Diseases (Dermatitis and Psoriasis)

Practical tips in overcoming Chronic Skin Diseases (Dermatitis and Psoriasis)

Objective 
To provide an understanding of skin problems and how to help yourself overcome them. Psoriasis is Curable and I have awakened from the nightmare. You too do not need to suffer needlessly. Just be open minded. 

What is Psoriasis and Dermatitis?

Dermatitis is a blanket term meaning "inflammation of the skin" (i.e. rashes). Psoriasis is a chronic skin disorder which is incurable (according to dermatologist). It may include both dermatitis symptoms (such as rashes and skin inflammations) and psoriasis symptoms (such as areas of white hardened and layered skins).

Many doctors will say that psoriasis is non contagious. Don't believe them. They admit they have no clue on how to cure psoriasis and classify it as incurable. Perhaps if you do not scratch them it will not be contagious. Weeping skins and wounds provide viruses that can cause infection to the areas touched. Sometimes rashes suddenly appeared on my lips, ears and scalp. These rashes are due to unhealthy habit of inadvertently touching the areas after having touched the open wound of dermatitis /psoriasis infected areas (which is not dry especially after scratching). Therefore please wash your hands with soap after touching the affected areas. Dermatitis always work side by side with psoriasis. I used to have just a few tiny rashes on my left leg but within months spread to all over my body like the pictures below. Do not take chance.

We must also help the skin to breathe properly. When the skin is covered and unable to breathe, it become psoriasis. This is described in detail under Personal Care and Hygiene 5) below.

Skin problems can be very stressful and might be the result of a stressful life style. It might look very unsightly and probably even your close friends and family members might avoid you for fear of getting infected. Some of these diseases are contagious. 

Eventually as I exercises more with qigong, do lots of manual laborious work, strengthening my immune system, there was no need for any cure. It just slowly disappeared over 2 years. 

Psoriasis

Skin Inflamation

The above are from nightmares. Even if you get healed, you are constantly reminded by the marking all over your body. Luckilly I do not have any on the face.

   

So you see it is curable but unforgetable.

Here are some advice and tips for psoriasis and dermatitis patients

Having live with skin diseases for more than 30 years (of trials and errors), I possess more information of the disease than most people. I have got myself whack until both my legs were swollen and bruised, acupuncture, herbal, moxibustion, injections, blood tests, urine test, sample tissue test and etc. Both western and traditional medicine did not work for me. At the beginning, I was only using ointment in 15 gm tube. Later I was purchasing the whole jar. I was given 30% discount by the pharmacy. 

Below are some of the things that helped me say goodbye to psoriasis.

 

Acceptance
The first thing when one is diagnose to have psoriasis is to learn to accept the fact. Acceptance is very important since denial will not do you any good or help you in any way. You must accept the fact and see what are your options available to you. Be logical and look through the options. What has happened, is a reality and cannot be changed. Therefore we must do the right thing to help ourselves. You must look at the positive side or else there can be no cure for you.

Reality Check - Do not jump from the frying pan into the fire
Once it has been confirmed that you have a chronic illness, one should have a reality check. You should know what is the worst case scenario and what is your chances of a cure. You must do some deep down reality check. If your illness is not life threatening, do not accept a solution that might make you into a moron with no cure in sight. If you only have chronic skin disorder (psoriasis), why take injections that does not provide a cure but cause you further miseries such as lost of memories, hairs and etc. Be logical. If you do not help yourself, who would? Do not get opinions from people with no experience or knowledge of the disease. Talk to specialists but you must also evaluate them carefully. Be prudent. Do not jump from the frying pan into the fire. Do not listen to everyone as there are a lot of "scavengers" taking advantage of people who are in need of help and in distress. Be on the look out for conman who like to prey on the helpless. There are Qigong "masters" who ask you to pay lots of money to help you get well. These people play with our emotions to try to con us. Then there are others who have no abilities to help us but just want to be "busy bodies". These people instead of helping us, give us more stress and waste our precious time. Even the dermatologist will tell you there is no cure, you must accept the fact. The only thing they can do is to help you control it from getting worse by way of medication. But I am a living proof that a cure is possible. I do not need any medication anymore. It is the cheapest and most effective natural cure.

Change
There is a need to change your lifestyle and mindset to help you in the healing process. As you come to term with your illness, you must recognize that there is a need to adjust your lifestyle and remove any unhealthy habits such as smoking, unhealthy eating habits (eating excessively or hurriedly), unhealthy sleeping habits (not enough rest) and etc. Do not listen to everyone's advice.  Be logical. All food should generally be less sugar,  less salt, less acidic (and more alkaline) and less animal fats. Drink lots of warm water regularly. Do not seek for miracle cures. The only person capable of producing any miracle is yourself. Miracle only happen because you will it to happen. You must have faith in yourself. Think positively. 

 

Exercises / Qigong / Yoga
Any kind of rigorous physical exercises can help. If you incorporate proper breathing into the exercises it would be much better.
It is a known fact that we are constantly stressed by our surroundings and what happen to our lives. We need to do breathing exercises to bring down our stress. Meditation might also help. When you slow down your breathing, automatically your heart also beat more slowly and you are able to become more calm. Look at the way a baby sleep and how the baby breathe. You will notice that the baby belly expand as the baby breathe in and back to normal as he/she exhale. Similarly, in qigong and mind control, you try to relearn what you have forgotten as a child. You try to have deeper  breathing (not just your chest level but down to your belly). This will definitely help those with breathing difficulties. These breathing exercises also help build up your lung and stomach muscles. Regular deep diaphragm breathing qigong exercises does help to strengthen the immune system. With a strengthened immune system, most of my illness disappeared within 2 years.   

 

Personal Care and Hygiene

You must learn to take care of yourself. You must be very disciplined and hygienic. 

1) Please refrain from scratching yourself as the area scratched might become infected. You see scratching will make the area affected become inflamed and the rashes spread to a larger area. Always keep the finger nails short and clean. My advice is to wear cotton gloves so that you would not unconsciously scratch yourself during your sleep. WOUNDS AND WEEPING SKINS ARE CONTAGIOUS. Sleep inside a mosquitoes net to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes bites can cause itchiness and a desire to scratch the affected area. 

Another reason for scratching is due to sweating at the armpit areas, the joint between the upper and lower limbs etc. If do you sweat, please clean yourself with soap and water. Always keep yourself clean and dry. Change your clothing that is dirty or sweaty. Be hygienic. Do not share your towel with others especially if you have opem wound or weeping skin. Viruses and bacterias might be passed on to your loved ones. Make sure you change the towel regularly to ensure you do not inadvertantly spread it to other unaffected areas. You must be very strict on the hygience.

The scratching might bring some temporary relief to the itchiness but would cause injury and inflammation to the sensitive skin encouraging the spread of dermatitis. So if you cannot control the urge to scratch the affected area, you at least keep your finger nails short. You should wear cotton gloves when you go to bed.

If you scratched the affected areas during your sleep you will have problem going back to sleep. The bed sheet would be smeared with blood from the wounds. Then there is the weeping skins. So you need to use iodine to clean the wounds and hopefully get it to dry up. The blood will stop but the wound might still weep (a yellowish liquid). If you cannot stop it, use a plaster with an absorbent (apply some ointment on it) to seal the wound. It was real nightmares for me. After that you might not be able to get to sleep. Wear cotton gloves if you must. Remember do not scratch yourself under any circumstances! 

2) Do not let any injuries/wounds become wet. I remember when I fell from my motor bike more than 30 years ago, when ever the injuries touch water it became very difficult to heal. The areas already dried was about to heal suddenly become soft and itchy. The areas started to weep and soon you see pus. It become infected again. So do avoid water at the area of the wound if you want the wound to heal faster. Do not allow the skin to weep. It can get infected. Wash your hands with soap, if you touch the wounds. 

3) Always keep your finger nails short and clean. This is to prevent you from scratching yourself and getting infected by the dirty nails.

4) For those with sweaty feet, please wear cotton socks and change it everyday. Nylon socks are not suitable because it cannot absorb the sweats from your feet. The sweat will cause some skin on the sole of your feet to peel off and can be the start of the skin problems. You can also apply some powder before you wear the sock.

5) If you sweat, try to wipe off the sweat with a dry towel. You can also use some luke warm water to wash the sweaty areas. Taking a bath is another option. When you sweat, the areas at the joints of the limbs such as the joints of the upper/lower limbs, armpit area and groin area might become itchy. When you start scratching the areas, this can cause inflammation at the areas. Previously, I always have a few heat rashes /inflammations per year where the urge to scratch defy any logic. Eventually the whole areas (as mentioned) would be extremely itchy and red. When you start scratching it would become very unsightly and difficult to control. Alway keep inflamed area dry and cool. Calamine lotions can cool down the inflamed areas but not 100% effective. The cooling St Luke's Pricky Heat Powder (also known as Snake powder) is less effective alternative. The idea is to keep all inflamed skin cool and dry.

6) Those hardened white skin on psoriasis patients make it difficult for their skin to breathe. So whenever you are free, use a sharp blade to slowly and softly scrape off as much of the hardened skin as possible. Be careful not to cut yourself. With practiced, you will learn to identify the type of skin that can and cannot be scrapped. You can also apply olive oil and other healing oil to soften the skin. If you managed to get the area cleared of dead skin, small hairs will slowly grow out  and your skin will be able to breathe again. Very soon it will look almost normal again except for some discoloring. I discovered this through trials and errors.

 

 

Medication

1) You must be careful of eating too much of the little yellow brown pills (to prevent itchiness and let you sleep better). Doctors and Skin Specialist like to prescribe the pill so that you would not scratch yourself while sleeping. It might not work for you. If your mind is focus on something, you might not be able to sleep. It could also probably be due to scratching during your sleep. See Personal Care and Hygiene 1) above. You might probably fall asleep while driving to work. I was involved in several car accidents (I drove into the car in front of mine).

2) Continuous usage of antibiotics and steroids may cause thinning of the skins and psoriasis. You can depend on ointment such as Dermovate recommended by many doctors but it was ineffective for me. The skin specialist claimed it was the strongest. I have better luck with Diprocel and Diprosalic ointment. Diprosalic contains salic acid which may help to break through the hardened skins. Ointment is more effective than cream as it is more oily. If you have not use it before perhaps it might help you recover from your problem. Prolong usage is not advisable. Apply ointment thinly and uniformly over affected areas.

3) Some Chinese Medicine for removal of toxin in the blood might also help. You can get it in tablets of 30 pills. Some are quite effective against body heat and toxin in the blood which causes inflammation of the skins.

4) Do not use any oil on the areas affected by dermatitis (rashes and inflammation of the skin). As the areas are inflamed, you need to cold it down. Olive Oil or other oil will not be suitable. You need something cooling. The most important thing is your skin must be able to breathe. If your skin cannot breathe, you will feel itchy and thus the need to scratch. I rather let my skin be dry but not cracked. You need the oil or lotion only when it is too dry not otherwise.

 

Proper Nutrition

1) Eat a balanced meal. If you eat very little and blame it on the appetite, you are looking for trouble. Eating too much will also be bad for your health. Eating vegetarian food alone does not guarantee you would be cured. I actually took vegetarian food for more than 1 year without any noticeable changes. If your body do not get enough nutrients how can your immune system be strong. All food should generally be less sugar,  less salt, less acidic (and more alkaline) and less animal fats. You cannot expect to be healthy when you eat excessively or unhealthily. Please eat slowly and digest your food properly. No junk food or untested products.

2) You need to drink lots of hot to warm water to help release the toxin either through your kidney (urine) or through your sweats.

 

Proper Rest 

1) All of us need to sleep properly in order for us to become healthy. We should preferably be able to sleep for at least 8 hours. Sleeping allows your immune system to take over the healing process. If you do not sleep well, you will be unhealthy. Bruce Lee did not have sufficient rest and took pain killers. He went into a coma and died.

2) Worries and stressful life style can make your psoriasis get worse. Look at the positive side. Read more motivational books or articles. You can click on to our Chi Dynamics Cheras website at www.chidynamic.netai.net/motivation. Remember what is past is long gone and cannot be changed. What you can change is now and the future. Be logical.

Conclusion

Empower yourself to become healthier through the above proven methods. Psoriasis is curable and I am the proof. There are lots of visible markings on my limbs and body as proof that at one time or another were affected by dermatitis and psoriasis. You do it step by step, making your immune system stronger day by day. There is a need to change your lifestyle and mindset to help you in the healing process. As you come to term with your illness, you must recognize that there is a need to adjust your lifestyle and remove any unhealthy habits such as smoking, unhealthy eating habits (eating excessively or hurriedly), unhealthy sleeping habits (not enough rest) and etc. Do not listen to everyone's advices.  Be logical. All food should generally be less sugar,  less salt, less acidic (and more alkaline) and less animal fats. Drink lots of warm water regularly. Please try not to scratch the affected area under any circumstances. After touching any affected areas do wash your hands to avoid spreading it to other people or other parts of your body. Do proper Qigong breathing exercises daily. Do not seek for miracle cures. The only person capable of producing any miracle is yourself. Miracle only happen because you will it to happen. You must have faith in yourself. Read more motivation books and articles. Take care. 

If you need more advice or clarification, do not hesitate to contact me at 012-6570647 or just email me at tiockfeng@hotmail.com. Click here if you want to read more on my experiences on Psoriasis when I was in my 1st year learning qigong.