What Does Psoriasis Look Like? Is It Contagious?

Psoriasis is a skin disease. It looks like red, dry, scaly patches on the skin. These are known as "lesions". From when it first appears, it can last the rest of the person's life, with periods of relative calm and other "flairs" when it is worse. It can be anywhere on the body, and can appear at any age. The scaly patches caused by psoriasis, called psoriatic plaques, are areas of excessive and inflammation skin production. Skin rapidly accumulates at these sites and takes on a silvery-white appearance. Plaques frequently occur on the skin of the knees and elbows, but can affect any area including the gentials and scalp. In contrast to eczema, psoriasis is more likely to be found on the extensor aspect of the joint.

Is It Contagious?
Psoriasis is absolutely not contagious. You won't get it from being around someone who has it, even if you come in contact with them, their skin, their breath, their saliva, etc. There is a genetic tendency, however, so if the mother or father has it, there's a good chance that one or more of the children will also develop it during their lifetime.

Does It Hurt?
Some people with psoriasis do not have any issues with the way it feels, but most do. The raw skin is more often described as burning, stinging, bleeding, itchy or sore.

How Many People Have It?
In the United States, 4.5 million adults have psoriasis. Children can also get it, but most people see it between 15 and 35 years old. It can be in those of any race, and men and women both get it.

What Causes Psoriasis?
Researchers are still figuring out what causes psoriasis. It is believed to be an auto-immune disease, and can be triggered by stress, skin injuries, drug reactions, or an infection. In psoriasis, the immune system seems to be working overtime, creating new skin cells at a much faster rate than needed. These cells accumulate on the skin, creating the lesions on the skin. Research is continually ongoing.

How Severe Is It?
Psoriasis can be severe, but for many people it is just mild or moderate. There are two determinates of severity. First, how much of the body does the psoriasis cover? For measuring purposes, the palm of the hand covers one percent of the body. Secondly, how much does the psoriasis limit your daily activities? This will differ depending on where the psoriasis is and how it impacts the person's life.

What About A Cure?
Research is ongoing, but so far, there is no cure. It generally must be treated for the rest of the person's life. There are various topical and systemic options, but nothing usually will eliminate it. Also, for many people, phototherapy treatments can be a God-send. (For others, spending extra time outdoors will accomplish the same thing.)

What Can I Do To Help?
First, be kind to those who have. Don't act like they have leprosy (they don't) and don't make a big deal out of it if or when you see it. Second, participate in a research study - whether you have psoriasis or not. Research studies need control groups who don't have the disease too, so don't be shy. Help us out, please!

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Is Psoriasis Contagious? Discovering What Actually Is

Discovering you have psoriasis is often enough of a blow by itself, and the worry of is psoriasis contagious only adds to the confusion and misery. Many people don't really know much about psoriasis until they actually find out they have it themselves, because it is not a subject we hear much about. This naturally leads to the confusion and mis-understanding that someone experiences when first diagnosed, and it is understandable to worry about any contagious aspects of the disease.

The question of 'Is psoriasis contagious?' is important to sufferers in two ways: firstly in trying to identify how they acquired the condition themselves, and secondly in worrying if they may pass it on to others too. In addition, there is also the fear that others who notice the scaly patches on the skin will act differently around you for fear of catching the disease themselves.

To answer this question, it is important to understand what actually is psoriasis. Contagious skin diseases tend to be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungus. Psoriasis is caused by none of these, and that alone tells us that psoriasis is absolutely not contagious. It is quite simply impossible for the condition to pass from person to person through any amount of physical contact.

The causes of psoriasis manifest way below the surface of the skin, within the body's own immune system which we usually rely on to fight disease. A malfunction in the immune system is to blame for a rapid production of skin cells, up to 10 times faster than normal. These skin cells still take the same amount of time to die and shed, so a build-up of skin cells occurs on the skin resulting in the most common type of psoriasis: plaque psoriasis.

What causes this problem with the immune system is still unclear, although it is believed genetics are involved making psoriasis possibly hereditary. Other causes attributed to psoriasis are allergies, stress, and poor nutrition (to name a few). Tackling the causes of psoriasis can be tricky because of the wide range of possible causes, and medicines prescribed for the condition tend to treat only the symptoms rather than the root cause.

Once they realise that psoriasis is not contagious, most will then have to decide if they want to live with the condition indefinitely or take steps to cure themselves of the disease. The worry for many is the mis-understanding surrounding a skin disease like psoriasis, and that people we come into contact with will no doubt also wonder is psoriasis contagious. For the most part, concentrating your energies on healing your condition will do you far greater good than worrying what others may think.

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