After months of horrible aggravation with a primary care doctor misdiagnosing me with rashes, allergic reaction, etc. I finally went to a dermatologist to find out what was going on with my legs. My legs looked awful and felt terrible (itching NONSTOP and when I say itching worse than a bug bite or poison ivy). It had gotten to the point I didn't want legs any more. If I had gotten in a wreck and had to have my legs amputated I would have been happy to be rid of them.
The dermatologist walks in, sits down on a stool in front of me, looks over my legs, looks at me and says, "You've got psoriasis". Simple as that! I was shocked. That after what I had been through this man diagnosed me with in seconds. I was so excited to finally know what was wrong. However I knew what the psoriasis diagnosis meant. FOREVER. He then said, "Now I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that psoriasis is not curable. It's very rare for psoriasis to go away. Most people have it forever. But the good news is that it is treatable. With the right medicine you can control it and won't even be able to see in on your legs." So I was crushed at the knowledge of having this forever but slightly comforted by the thought that I can use medicine to stop the itching and make my legs look normal again. I started using medicine called Vanos. It's a corticosteroid cream.
Now if you don't know anything about corticosteroid creams let me share a little piece of information. With long term use they can cause your skin to thin. Yes, THIN. Now obviously having your skin thin is not a good thing. I knew of the side effect and went on my merry way. After several years I developed two scars on my thighs, one on each leg, that looked very similar to stretch marks. I'm not talking about the tiny little bitty white lines you get on your hips when you have a growth spurt. I am talking about large purple scars like a morbidly obese person would have stretching across their ginormous belly! I showed them to my doctor thinking they were a concern and thinning of my skin from the long term use of my medicine. He brushed off this concern though and said it was merely caused from "life". I kid you not that it what he said. Now let me tell you a little about my physicality. At the age of 27 years old I currently weigh the most I have ever weighed in my life! At the time I got those scars I was around 21 years old and weighed about 120lbs. I was on the lower end of the average weight for someone my age and height. I was not a very active person. I didn't play any sports where my skin would have been pulled or tugged. I hadn't gotten in to an accident of any kind where I was injured. There was absolutely no part of my LIFE that could have caused these scars. But he's the doctor. And I am a pessimist when it comes to doctors.
I continued using my medicine because the horrible itching just wasn't worth giving up the medicine. And at the time the other medicine that was available were pills and shots and I really wasn't interesting in doing either of those.
It has now been 10 years since I was diagnosed with psoriasis. 10 years that I have been using this medicine. That is EXTREME long term use in most people's books. Well about a month ago a new scar showed up following right along with the old one. It looked like I had my leg sliced opened it was so dark purple. I made an appointment with a primary care doctor (cause my stupid crappy insurance I have now thanks to obama says I have to) to check out my legs. I tried cutting back on my medicine since I was sure that was causing it and had caused the old scars. I get to the doctor (who it wonderful btw, super sweet lady) and she confirms it. "WOW! That's really bad. That's your skin thinning for sure" Her eyes got huge when she saw the scars. She told me to stay away from my medicine as best as I could but understood if I couldn't take the itching and would need to use a tiny dab of it. She gave me a referral to see a dermatologist because of how bad it was she wanted a dermatologists expert opinion on it and how to deal with it and what medicine I need to change to.
So after a month I got in to see a dermatologist on Wednesday. I told her what was going on, she looked at my legs and she had the same reaction as my primary doctor did. Her eyes grew so large and she had this look on her face like if she thought it'd be appropriate she'd say, "OH MY GAH" Instead she just made noises. Mmmph, hmmm, ooww. To which I replied, "Yeah, this is why I'm here". She looked my legs over and then the words I never thought I'd hear came out of her mouth, "Who told you you had psoriasis?" I couldn't believe she just asked that. I told her that the dermatologist that I'd been going to for the past 10 years did. She made some more noises and then, "I don't think that's what you have". I'm thinking are you kidding me right now? You don't think I have psoriasis? So what do I have? Is there something worse that psoriasis? I simply asked her, "What do you think it is"? She said, "I think you've got eczema. I really do think that's what it is". I was still in shock. ECZEMA!
Now for those of you who don't know the difference between psoriasis and eczema I'll share this little bit of information with you. Psoriasis is your immune system telling your skin to grow faster than it's suppose to. Psoriasis requires prescription shots, pills, or creams that cost thousands of dollars sometimes a combination of those things. Eczema is your immune system having a simple reaction to something causing an inflammation on the skin. Eczema might require you to change the soap you use in the shower, use a medicated lotion which is OTC, possible change your detergent. THAT'S IT!!! So simple.
So what am I currently doing? I have changed the body wash I use in the shower from Neutrogena to CeraVe and change the lotion that I use from CeraVe to Epionce which the doctor told me to use every day. Epionce will give my skin the moisture and whatever else it needs to keep from freaking out. That's it. Change my soap and change my lotion. Make sure I use the lotion every day. SIMPLE AS THAT!!!!!!! She did prescribe me a cream that hopefully will help restore those scars partially to normal. So that was pretty great news. I didn't think anything could be done for those. I had just considered those a lost cause. But she said she thinks that the cream can reduce their size and make them look more normal (skin color). So I am using that twice a day for who knows how long lol. She said it could take at least 3 months before I see a real change in them. Which I am happy about because I didn't think anything could be done for the scars. So we'll see.
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