Psoriasis Prevention

When it comes to psoriasis prevention you have to look at what causes psoriasis. If you can treat the cause then you may be able to prevent psoriasis, or even put psoriasis into remission.

What causes Psoriasis?

Psoriasis is a long-lasting autoimmune disease where the body produces antibodies that literally treats normal cells like invaders and will begin attacking them and destroying them. There are over 80 different known autoimmune diseases, including Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Graves’ disease, chronic inflammatory disease, Guillain-Barre syndrome, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis.

In the case of psoriasis, T-cells, which are overactive immune system blood cells, form on areas of the skin. This buildup causes the skin cells in that area to begin to reproduce very rapidly. This in turn produces the white, scaly plaques on the skin.

How to Treat the Inflammation that Causes Autoimmune Disease

Since doctors are trained to treat symptoms the typical treatment for psoriasis and the myriad of other autoimmune diseases is to throw anti-inflammatory medications at the patient. Unfortunately these drugs do not address the underlying causes of inflammation in chronic diseases, such as infections, environmental toxins, an inflammatory diet, allergens, and stress.

Fortunately, there is a new specialty emerging in the 21st century called “functional medicine”, which is teaching doctors to not just treat the symptoms, but to treat the cause. These doctors are trained to ask look for the cause of the disease and treat that.

Psoriasis Prevention Means Avoiding the Inflammation

Since the inflammation that can trigger an autoimmune disease like psoriasis can be cause by a variety of triggers, you and your doctor (hopefully a one specializing in functional medicine) will have to begin looking for those common causes of inflammation. These triggers would be toxins, allergens, and infections.

As this search begins you may find yourself hearing new terms that you’d never heard before, like “Helicobacter pylori” (H pylori), leaky gut, gluten, and probiotics. You’ll learn that overuse of antibiotics can alter your gut flora (bacteria). This then causes fungus and yeast to flourish.

You may be given an allergy test to see what allergens might be causing you issues. Even if you don’t have psoriasis now, if you have one of the other autoimmune diseases, you could very well develop psoriasis. It is quite common for someone to have more than one autoimmune disorder. So finding out what your triggers are can be the start of your own psoriasis prevention.

Psoriasis Prevention May Start in Your Gut

Since leaky gut is often at the root of an autoimmune disorder, healing your gut should be your first step.

The technical term for leaky gut syndrome is “increased intestinal permeability”. This refers to the fact that the tight junction of the epithelial cells lining the entire digestive tract are compromised, altered, or damaged. This means that they do not provide the tight barrier against toxins and even small particles of food leaking from the digestive tract.

The good news for psoriasis prevention is that leaky gut can be treated and the gut actually healed by eliminating the allergens from your diet that area causing the problem. This often means going on a very strict diet of eliminating all known triggers for three to six months from your diet. Foods like gluten, sugar, dairy, eggs, nuts, seeds, nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant), coffee and a host of chemical additives found in today’s processed foods.

Eliminating the triggers from your diet is often the first step in psoriasis prevention or even healing, so you might want to investigate an autoimmune diet, AIP, or elimination diet.

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