Psoriasis Medicine:
Prescription and Over-the-Counter Psoriasis Medications
World Psoriasis Day 29 October 2024
Inspiring Hope and Empowering Individuals with Psoriasis
psoriasis medicine
Regretfully, there is no person conclusive psoriasis medication that will totally eliminate the illness from your body. It's a persistent disease, implying that as soon as you have actually obtained it, you have actually obtained it permanently, and then while there might be times when the signs and symptoms are much better or even worse, or perhaps sometimes gone with excellent, there will certainly constantly be the opportunity of an additional flare.
All medications that deal with psoriasis must just be absorbed conformance with insight and then directions from your physician as they could frequently be or conflict influenced by various other training course of medicines.
Psoriasis Medicine
Types of Prescription Medication
The type of psoriasis medication that you'll be prescribed will depend a lot on how severe the plaque builds up are and how often you get the symptoms. However, all psoriasis medicine types fall into the following 3 categories:
- Topical creams - topical creams are simply medicine that you apply to the skin directly. Topical treatments for psoriasis will often include vitamin D which the skin uses to repair itself, as well as some forms of corticosteroids. These will help your skin to protect itself against plaque build as well as providing a much quicker recovery time after a flare up. Doctors will generally prescribe topical medicines for mild cases, as the coolness of the cream itself will provide as much relief against the itchiness and redness surrounding the build up as the medicine will in terms of breaking down the extra skin cells.
- Internal medication - Internal medication will typically be provided in moderate cases of psoriasis alongside a series of topical medications. Doctors will give you a series of pills, or in some instances shots, to take on a daily basis and these will help to boost your body's immune system which can often be at the root cause of psoriasis attacks. Some of the newer drugs coming onto the market are actively targeting the genes which are thought to be responsible for the over production of skin cells but have some serious side effects. If you are prescribed internal medication, make sure that you follow the instructions carefully to help your body use the drugs effectively.
- Biologics - biologics represent the latest thinking in psoriasis medicine. They aim to mimic the proteins made by the body which help to regulate skin cell production and break down and effectively act as an internal helper to those cells which have gone "rogue" by correcting their reproduction levels to normal. This is quite an intensive course of action and once you've started on them, it's very unusual to stop so they are normally only prescribed as a last stop measure once all creams and oral medications have been tried. Not every insurance company covers this measure, so make sure that you consult both your insurance company and your doctor about the cost to you as the patient before commencing with biologics.
Over the Counter Medication
All prescription medications that treat psoriasis come at a cost and because the disease is chronic over the course of your lifetime, the price can quickly become a large additional debt, depending on your insurance cover.
To help fight these costs, some people choose to look into over the counter psoriasis medicine and treatments which cost a fraction of the pharmaceutical drugs.
Topical creams are the most common and easy to get hold medications in a drug store, so if you decide to experiment with these, look for those containing coal tar, salicylic acid and zinc pyrithione, all of which help to reduce itching and inflammation.
Their effectiveness will vary from person to person and it will be essential that you tell your doctor which products you're using to make sure that there won't be any undesirable side effects.
Learn more about Psoriasis Medicine
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
