A Sit Down With SkinWithSoph: Living With Psoriasis

This month is Psoriasis Awareness Month - an important awareness drive where the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) unites its community to share support, celebration, and dedication to all things psoriasis - including psoriasis causes, and skincare for psoriasis.

To mark the occasion and help to spread further awareness and the psoriasis treatment options available, we're joined by the wonderful Sophie Dove, who you may know as SkinWithSoph, who has kindly written us a guest post to talk about her experience of living with psoriasis. 

What Is Psoriasis?

Psoriasis is an autoimmune condition that causes inflammation to the skin. Normally, the body produces new skin cells every three to four weeks. However, in people with psoriasis, the process takes around three to seven days. As a result, cells that are not fully mature build up rapidly on the skin, forming flaky scales on the skin.

When Did Your Psoriasis Start?

Psoriasis is not something I had ever heard of, or seen, before my first outbreak back in 2022. My first flare up developed a few weeks after I had a streptococcal throat infection, an infection which can trigger a certain form of psoriasis called Guttate Psoriasis. This is the type of psoriasis I have, and it’s most common in children and young adults.

How Do You Deal With Your Psoriasis And What Psoriasis Treatments Have You Tried?

Something that really helped to speed up the healing process the first time around was sun exposure. It was summer time when my first flare up occurred so, naturally, I was outside a lot more frequently. When you’re exposed to the sun UV rays penetrate the skin. UVB, a certain type of UV ray, slows the production of skin cells. Therefore, for people with psoriasis, UVB helps to slow the rapid rate of skin cell production to a normal level. Having said this, it is still very important to protect the skin with sun cream to avoid over exposure and reduce the risk of scarring. (Shop our FTF collection of sunscreens here, and learn about our 366 Days of SPF campaign where we're highlighting the importance of wearing sunscreen every day to protect your skin from skin cancer and premature ageing).

I have also tried a few topical treatments for psoriasis, including the topical treatment Enstilar. Enstilar is a mist which contains two medications called calcipotriol and betamethasone. Calcipotriol helps to bring the rate of skin cell growth back to normal and betamethasone betamethasone helps to reduce the inflammation. This treatment has been very effective for me but, as betamethasone is a topical steroid, great care and consideration should be taken before using this treatment. For the psoriasis on my forehead and the sides of my face I was prescribed with Protopic, which is a topical medication used to treat moderate to severe atopic dermatitis (eczema).

Has Psoriasis Impacted Your Life?

Psoriasis has definitely impacted my life. Growing up, I dealt with quite severe acne, so I’m not unfamiliar with living with a skin condition. However, psoriasis has had a completely different effect on my self esteem. As my psoriasis is visible when I’m wearing most outfits, it has an effect on my self esteem when I’m going out. I find myself planning outfits around my skin condition and making sure to hide the flare up when I’m going to work events or dates. I worry that people will judge me for the way my skin looks, but I am learning to embrace it as it’s a part of who I am now.

What Advice Would You Give To Others Navigating Psoriasis?

My best advice would be to not care about what other people think. Skin conditions like psoriasis are a lot more common than we think. It’s difficult to ignore other people’s opinions when your psoriasis is visible, but the chances are most people are too concerned about their own struggles to notice it at all. As women especially, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to look a certain way and achieve some level of perfection in our appearance. Realistically, this need for perfection will never be met so instead we should embrace who we are and try not let our appearance consume our everyday lives.

Thank you so much to Sophie for sharing her story with us all today and spreading a positive message of empowerment.

To help you soothe your skin, we've compiled an edit of some of our top-rated psoriasis skincare products, as loved by you, our fantastic customers, below. You can shop our full collection of products to complete your psoriasis skincare routine here.

If you'd like expert advice or personalised product recommendations, our skin experts are on hand to help. Simply book your virtual video consultation here, and a member of our team will be in touch. Alternatively, you can take our free realtime online skin test here for instant recommendations. 

Enjoyed out guest post from Sophie and want to stay with us a little longer to read another post? Great! We think you'll love learning more about our August Brand of the Month in Everything You Need To Know About Avène: Dermatological Skincare For Your Face And Body.