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Patient perspectives: life with psoriasis

Updated on October 22, 2024

Watch dermatologist Dr. Day lead a discussion about living with psoriasis.

 

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Transcript

00:00
Don't let it take over your life. You know, you are not psoriasis. It's something that you deal with.
00:08
Hi, I'm Dr. Doris Day. I'm a board certified dermatologist in New York City. And today I'm here with Deidra, Apolonia, and Christopher,
00:16
and we're talking about living with psoriasis. My name is Deidra. I am from South Florida.
00:23
I officially got diagnosed in June of 2020. But I started noticing symptoms maybe about seven months prior.
00:31
My name is Christopher. I live in Hillsboro, Oregon. I was diagnosed with psoriasis when I was 12 years old, so
00:39
back in 1998-ish. Hi, my name is Apolonia. I live in California. And I have had psoriasis for about 15 years now.
00:47
The first time you started noticing psoriasis, what was going through your mind? Being 11 years old, you kind of just don't know what that means.
00:54
As I got older, I had a hard time. And Christopher, what about you? There obviously was a lot of ridicule and ugh, what is that?
01:03
But it really actually got bad in my adult years, go figure, right? Initially I thought it was maybe a fungal infection.
01:11
The doctor thought it was a fungal infection as well. And it wasn't. One of the things that I see with my patients
01:18
is that psoriasis really does have an impact on their life. As far as like social life and work, I mean,
01:24
I just wear long pants all the time. So it didn't matter what the temperature was. My psoriasis got the worst during the pandemic.
01:35
It was covering a lot of my face. So even with the mask, it impacted my self-esteem
01:42
quite a bit. So my psoriasis was very severe. So it covered over 85% of my body.
01:49
My main goal was to basically hide it from my friends and family. And that definitely impacted relationships.
01:56
What advice do you have for people who might be watching or even newly diagnosed or going through it and feeling a little bit down about it?
02:04
Don't let the side effects of biologics scare you away. I think the disease will tear you apart a lot faster than a few side effects will.
02:12
The advice I would give someone would be to trust the process and be patient with yourself
02:19
and just be kind to yourself also. My advice would be along the same line with Apolonia. You know, just be gentle with yourself.
02:27
I know there's a good bit of confusion that comes with it. But definitely find a community of people that
02:34
will support you through it. Is there anything a friend or a loved one can do to help someone they see going through psoriasis?
02:42
My mom showed up for me and she did it. If it's just a conversation for me to vent,
02:49
you know, my parents, relatives, cousins, siblings, like they were just there to listen. My mom and my dad, they were both very supportive
02:59
to the point that they would actually help me take my biologics when I didn't want to do it myself. And the way they supported me was by listening to me.
03:08
And Christopher, your wife is the one who got you to get the right treatment. So she gets flowers later, today, I think.
03:15
Yeah, she definitely deserves it, yeah. But I've always had a lot of support, lots of good friends, real friends.
03:21
The last question is how is wrong because of your psoriasis? So before, I was very vain about the way I looked,
03:28
really relied on my looks. And having psoriasis allowed me to not only become humble, but more compassionate with other people
03:37
as well. That's beautiful, very, very inspirational. I've learned to be more gentle with myself
03:46
and just kind of calm down a little bit and know that it will be OK. I love it. Well, I'm going to go home and hug my family.
03:53
You guys have really inspired me. [LIVELY MUSIC]

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