What is psoriatic disease?
Psoriatic disease is a chronic disease affecting multiple body sites. Psoriatic disease can affect the skin, the joints, and it puts you at higher risk of developing related diseases. Moreover, psoriatic disease heavily affects mental health.
Is psoriatic disease contagious?
NO! Psoriatic disease is not contagious.
What are the consequences of having psoriatic disease?
Psoriatic disease can impact people on many levels.
Physical: Many people struggle with the symptoms of psoriatic disease, as they might feel pain a lot of the time, experience constant itching or burning and tiredness. Psoriatic disease affects the entire body, not only the skin. It often causes fatigue and mental health challenges as well as skin and joint symptoms.
It can be challenging to find a treatment that works, especially in countries where not all treatment options are available.
Psoriatic disease also raises the risk for developing other noncommunicable diseases like heart disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and depression. This further contributes to the physical burden of psoriatic disease.
Emotional: Psoriatic disease can be hard to deal with because of the stigma and prejudice attached to the disease. Depression and psoriasis amplify each other. Depression and anxiety are very common among people living with psoriatic disease, each affecting more than 10% of people with psoriasis.
Social: Living with psoriatic disease can have a big impact on relationships with family, friends, partners, co-workers, or fellow students. Many people with psoriatic disease report feeling unsupported. Persistent myths about psoriatic disease such as that people with the disease are “unclean”, that they “caused their own psoriasis” or that the disease is contagious, are untrue.
Economical: There are significant costs associated with psoriatic disease. When they are available, medications may be very expensive or not covered by insurance providers. People with psoriatic disease on average have to miss more work compared to the general population. The presence of comorbidities increases costs. All of this may contribute to economic challenges.