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Unexpected illness
“On the occasion of my fortieth birthday, I received a ‘gift’: the doctors found psoriasis,” says Diana. The disease first affected the head, but the woman thought the itching was due to poor shampoo. And it wasn’t until the scabs appeared that he consulted a dermatologist. Psoriasis detected.
Soon, the itchy spots began to spread, appearing on the arm, leg, and later, on the back. Within a month, the disease affected the skin of the entire body.
“My whole body was a wound. The spots were scaly, peeling, bleeding. I couldn’t even roll over in bed because it hurt so much it looked like a lynx on my back. I went through fire and hell, Diana remembers. – I barely got out of the hospital. Skin cracked, blood ran. It used to be – smeared with medicine and wrapped in a sheet. “
The treatment did not help. Then, four years later, Diana was sent to the Kaunas clinics. The doctors working there gave him a new treatment at the time: biological therapy. However, these drugs didn’t help either. Two years later, a new biological drug emerged. “It seemed to have improved, but one day when it” gave way “- with watery blisters, the temperature. I was all bandaged because my bladder was ruptured,” the woman recalls.
The appearance of the third biological healed Diana’s arms and legs, and she rejoiced at the progress. But at the end of the summer, the doctors decided to give him the most recent biological room. “Finally, the condition of the skin has improved, the indescribable itching no longer suffers,” says Diana.
In thirteen years, the disease has damaged not only Diana’s skin, but also her joints. Can no longer work. Fortunately, the new prescribed treatment also helps the joints, they hurt less. “The disease takes everything: life, time, patience,” says the former doctor.
Inflammation weakens the body
An epidemiological study by LSMU researchers showed that 1% of people have psoriasis. Lithuanian children. An adult population survey is currently being conducted. Researchers have already studied 200 Kaunas residents and two of them have found psoriasis, which means that 1 percent of adults can get sick. In other European countries, the incidence is similar: 1-2%. population.
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease. Professor Skaidra Valiukevičienė, director of the Venereal and Skin Diseases Clinic at LSMU Hospital Kaunas Clinics, says that it damages the skin of patients and about a fifth affects the joints and, in the long run, they can be disabled.
Inflammation also affects the internal organs: heart, kidneys, liver. Forty-year-olds with psoriasis die twice as much as people of the same age without the disease.
“Inflammation also affects internal organs: heart, kidneys, liver. Forty-one years with psoriasis die twice as much as people of the same age who do not have the disease,” says the specialist.
Patients are classified according to the severity of the disease. First of all, according to the number of rashes – the more red spots on the body with dandruff, the more serious the disease. Moderate to severe disease is also found in those who affect the joints, although the rash may be small. This disease is also diagnosed in patients whose joints are not damaged, the rash does not spread over the entire body, but they are visible on visible parts of the body: on the palms, hands, on the face and hair. Such a person does not want to go to work, cannot go to the cinema, not even a haircut, because everyone sees the rash.
It’s not just genes that are to blame
The professor says that psoriasis can occur for many reasons. One of the most important is the gene that patients inherit from their parents. People with the HLA-Cw6 gene get sick before the age of 40, and the disease often affects their joints. For these people, psoriasis can be caused by stress, chronic viral infections, harmful habits, and more. People who do not have this gene get sick from the age of forty, the rash is accidental and can be caused by medications, chronic diseases or cancer.
However, scientists have not fully clarified why the disease occurs, but the mechanisms of development of psoriasis are already known, and effective treatments have been developed as a result.
Professor S. Valiukevičienė states that treatment depends on the severity of the disease. A person with moderate to severe psoriasis should be referred by a GP to a dermatologist at a university hospital, who will prescribe the treatment.
Initially, patients are treated with traditional systemic drugs, but if the patient’s condition does not improve within 6 months, they must be sent to psoriasis treatment centers, which operate in clinics in Kaunas and Santariškės and are expected to operate soon in Klaipeda. There, a council of three physicians decides whether to administer biological therapy to this patient. It differs from conventional treatment in that it does not affect all cells in the body, but only targets, hence the target therapy.
These drugs are a synthetic protein that attaches to a damaged cell in the human body and “blocks” inflammation. If treatment with so-called first-line biological therapy does not work, second-line drugs are given that work more precisely. If these drugs do not help, then the third order, the fourth. Biological therapy is now reimbursed for more than three hundred patients.
“The patient should receive an individually selected treatment as soon as possible so that the disease does not damage the joints or internal organs,” said prof. S. Valiukevičienė adds that doctors now communicate a lot with patients from a distance and find out if the disease is really serious. Only then do they come to the hospital for a consultation.
“There are no queues with us. During the quarantine we learned not to be late and to be very careful. Therefore, patients should not be afraid of being infected with coronavirus,” says the head of the clinic.
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