These Things Are Sent To Try Us

09/05/2009 by admin.

Since adolescence I have suffered (I use the word advisedly) from the skin disorder called psoriasis. Although not all that common, many people in the public eye have also talked and written about the complaint - most famously the late Dennis Potter and the late  John Updike to mention only two - and at least two of my friends have psoriasis. The disease is genetic and results in skin cells multiplying themselves abnormally quickly. The skin surface then becomes raised and the multiplying skin cells show themselves as silvery patches, large or small. It is, of course, not infectious.

There is no known cure, despite well-meaning friends being taken in by, and suggesting, new topical preparations which, although alleviating the symptoms do not cure them. Some of these are very good and it seems that different people use different creams and ointments and find they work for them.I use Dovonex but it does not work for others I have talked to. Since the disease is genetic the only prospect of a cure may lie in genetic modification but, of course, psoriasis is not a killing disease, the argument goes, so it has a low priority - almost certainly rightly - alongside the search for a cure for instance for cancer or for kidney failure.

There are more radical treatments, amongst which two are the use of the cancer drug methotrexate, or ultraviolet ray treatment combined with ingestion of psoralens (substances which increase the sensitivity of the skin to UV rays). The latter, which I have tried, involves wearing good dark glasses after you take the tablets and for hours afterwards, because the drug also vastly increases the absorption of sunlight by the eyes. This is why I now never question people who wear dark glasses in the winter. I remember vividly the stares I had at the shades I wore on the London Underground when I returned to my office on a cold dark winter’s day, after treatment st St. Mary’s. Again, these treatments don’t cure psoriasis though they bring about quicker results than topical applications, although they also increase the risk of skin cancer!

The real difficulty, agonising during adolescence but still persisting into old age, is that it can be embarrassing to disrobe in public, for instance  in  changing rooms, or on a beach, or to use public swimming pools. Thus this led, in my case, to terrible overall low self-esteem and self-confidence which lasted well into my thirties and may remain somewhat - though in my old age I care much less about what other people think. It still hurts though to be told, in a somewhat admonishing manner by “friends”, that new “cures” are available. There ain’t no sich thing !

Still it was nice to be told by another friend at a Network lunch the other day, that, facially at least, I look better at 79 than I did when I was 29.I’m sure he meant well but he took this as an indication that I was cured which is not the case, in any sense. Still there are, as my mum used to say, worse things at sea!. Many worse things.

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