What is Psoriasis?
Psoriasis is a disorder that affects the skin, and can involve skin of any part of the body, including the scalp. Treatment for psoriasis of the skin elsewhere is entirely different than the psoriasis scalp treatment. Almost half of the patients who suffer from psoriasis have psoriasis of the scalp too. Below is a list of symptoms as well as a list of psoriasis scalp treatment options that are available.
Psoriasis Scalp Treatment - What Are The Options?
- Genetic predisposition
- Allergic tendency
- Environmental factors
Symptoms of Psoriasis of the scalp
- The scalp can be affected in a variety of ways like simple flaking of the scalp to more severe conditions like formation of plaques.
- These plaques typically look silvery white and are raised and irregular patches on the scalp
- There may be oozing of sticky honey-like discharge from these patches.
- The plaques and patches may not always be limited to the scalp, and can extend downwards or sideways to involve the area behind the ears and below the hairline on the nape of the neck or anteriorly on to the upper part of the face
- Loss of hair, and it could be matted and unmanageable too.
How does Psoriasis of the scalp impact the life of the patients?
Psoriasis is a disorder that usually evokes a lot of embarrassment and inhibition in the patients who are affected by it. This is because the psoriatic patches look unsightly and could evoke a sense of repulsion in the people who see it. Almost all of the other psoriatic patches can be hidden by clothes, but the psoriatic patches on face and scalp are quite tough to conceal. This may make the patient quite self-conscious and even lead to emotional stress.
Psoriasis Scalp Treatment
The medications used for treating psoriasis of the scalp are similar to the ones that are used for treating the patches elsewhere on the body, but the scalp requires special vehicles for the medications.
Instead of the messy ointments or creams, doctors usually prescribe shampoos, liquids, foams or oils that are medicated with the chosen medications.
- Ketoconazole
- Dovonax
- Anthralin
- Corticosteroids
Light therapy: This is a comparatively innovative kind of psoriasis scalp treatment, because it involves the use of devices that have comb like attachments. These devices use light therapy to treat the patches, but can be highly risky as there could be an increased chance of developing cancer of the skin. So this light therapy is not used so often in psoriasis scalp treatment, as it gets highly difficult to keep monitoring patients for any development of skin cancer.
Image by AKMA via Flickr
