Psoriasis August 2008 Archive

I have a patient from Japan who came in for refills of her psoriasis cream. She mentioned that she used to receive traditional herbal treatment from her doctor overseas ... Read More

The most common question I get when I see a patient with psoriasis is "what caused it?" or "how did I get this?" The answer is complicated, but I've ... Read More

Our skin has a complicated immune system which appears to be overstimulated and overactive in psoriasis. Normally, cells called dendritic cells in the skin respond to infectious organisms by ... Read More

The second annual Psoriasis Cure Now "Short Sleeve Days" is set for September 12-14 of this year. The event, which is sponsored by the major pharmaceutical companies involved in ... Read More

Yesterday a patient I started on Humira just six weeks ago returned for a follow up visit. Initially he had a dozen or so rather large, thick plaques of ... Read More

This weekend I had the honor to give two talks at the 2008 annual convention of the National Psoriasis Foundation. If you've not been to one of these meetings ... Read More

Johnson and Johnsons new biologic drug ustekinumab will be reviewed for an additional three months before the FDA decides whether or not to approve it. This will give the ... Read More

Not getting your prescriptions filled and treating your condition is called "non-compliance" and it seems that patients with chronic conditions such as psoriasis are the most likely to be non-compliant. ... Read More

This month is psoriasis awareness month and the National Psoriasis Foundation has a campaign going on called "Free to Get In The Pool". Sometimes patients with psoriasis are stigmatized ... Read More

Coal tar is old, older than John McCain even, but that doens't mean its not still very useful. In fact a recent study of a novel coal tar preparation ... Read More

Those thick, yellow and brittle nails may be due to psoriasis, but did you know that psoriatic nails are actually more prone to fungal infection than healthy nails? That's ... Read More

Two additional cytokines have been implicated in causing the red scaly plaques of psoriasis: IL-17 and interferon gamma. If history proves a reliable indicator, some biologic drugs designed ... Read More

Seems Enbrel (etanercept) may have more uses than for just arthritis or psoriasis. In a small, open-label study, Alzheimer's patients regained speech skills with injection of Enbrel in the ... Read More