When I was about five years old my mother was in hospital delivering my sister and my father told her that I had a nasty looking rash on my face and he thought it might have been ringworm. However, I believe that this was the first time my psoriasis appeared.
Although a name was not put to my psoriasis until some years later, I started playing table tennis at around the same age and this required me to get into shorts and teeshirts. At about the age of seven or eight I started to insist on wearing long knee length socks. I would then start trying to pull the top of the socks over my knees, obviously trying to conceal the plaques of psoriasis.
I can vaguely remember visiting a doctor in the Mater Hospital and being prescribed a medicine. All I can remember was that it was very smelly. I now know it as tar pomade, which is still smelly and which my wife hates. This was to be applied three times a day but I can't remember it ever being applied.
I decided to take matters into my own hands at about the age of 10. I can distinctly remember sitting in the front of my father's truck with a sheet of sandpaper, meticulously filing down the plaques, the dry, white skin landing all over the seat. Strangely enough this didn't seem to cure it.
 Until then, I hadn't really suffered a hard time from others, although I had been exposed to lots of people through school and through table tennis competitions. I was probably seen as a child who was unable to defend himself and the odd taunt of 'meningitis head' fell on deaf ears, as I hadn't a clue what it meant anyway. However, the dreaded secondary school was only around the corner and I was to spend some of these days as the butt of a lot of jokes.
From day one I was conscious of my appearance and made my parents give me a letter to say I was exempt from showering after PE. So not only did I have skin problems, I was now a smelly boy with skin problems.
I was constantly referred to as a leper and unfortunately I was all too aware of the meaning of this word. These were probably my worst years with psoriasis. I can remember a drug called Oxipor, which had strict instructions that the skin was not to be exposed to the sun while it was applied. I accidentally went out in the sun and it burned the arms off me. It did, however, improve the condition and I found myself treating my skin this way.
When the dreaded school years were over, all the cruel things I had been called could thankfully be put behind me. I did start to take more and more notice of my own appearance, and realised that something needed to be done.
Girlfriends were few and far between, with the unsightly psoriasis and my lack of self esteem both playing a major part. My sister, who also had the condition (I refuse to call it a disease), told me about a medicine she had been prescribed. I went to a local GP who told me he had never heard of it but if I knew how to spell it he would prescribe it for me. Now here was a man with a wealth of study to his name and I was doing the prescribing!
I think I first attended Hume Street Hospital when I was about 18. All these years of trying to cure this wretched condition had come to nothing and something needed to be done.
The first course of treatment was short contact therapy. Dithranol in varying strengths was applied to the skin and ultraviolet light was given afterwards. This had the effect of burning the plaques off the body. Now why didn't I patent my Oxipor and sunshine as a way of doing the same? This worked really well and after about 12 weeks or so, I wasn't only a psoriasis free guy but one with a cool tan from all that UVB.
However, I still hadn't managed to learn any of the skills associated with managing a skin condition such as psoriasis. I had a remission but after a while it returned and I had to return to Hume Street, and not for the last time.
Hume Street is a great equaliser, because every patient, no matter what stage of treatment they are at, knows about the condition and can talk freely about it amongst fellow sufferers.
I soon realised that I was actually quite lucky to have had the condition from an early age. I spoke to a man, probably in his 20s, who had only just developed the condition and was absolutely devastated. At this stage I was quite accustomed to having psoriasis and could talk freely about it.
The staff at Hume Street are among the kindest people I have ever met and I actually enjoy being treated for my condition there. I am still fighting a losing battle in between treatments to keep the psoriasis at bay but what the heck.
I now have a wife who loves me, scales and all, and three beautiful kids. I can talk freely about my condition and recently had the honour of talking to more than 60 nurses at St Vincent's Hospital about psoriasis and how it affects me in my everyday life.
The truth is, it still subconsciously affects me but not to any great extent. I might wear my hair a little shorter when I've just finished a course of treatment but it will never stop me getting into my shorts in the summertime.
Written by Anthony Redmond
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