Psoriasis And Hair Loss

Psoriasis is a chronic, non contagious skin condition which is caused by your body over producing new skin cells. It commonly develops on the knees, elbows and scalp, and often tends to form a thick layer of scaly, white or silver skin flakes. Psoriasis patches can also have red inflamed looking areas, appear quite dry, and itch or burn.

One of the most common parts of the body psoriasis develops is on the scalp. For some people this is just a simple embarrassment, because it looks like a bad case of dandruff. For others however, large patches of thick scales can develop, and this can cause some amount of hair loss. Hair loss tend to be an extremely uncomfortable phenomenon for both men and women, and it can be enhanced by the ugly appearance of large, thick psoriasis patches.

The good news though, is that psoriasis hair loss is temporary. Once the psoriasis is brought under control, you tend to stop losing hair. And if everything else is normal in your body, new hair will grow back into the bald patches left behind by the psoriasis flare up.

Usually the hair loss is a secondary result of the psoriasis. In other words: Psoriasis doesn't technically cause the problem, but what you do or use to try to treat the psoriasis can cause the hair loss. If you try to peel off the thick, flaky skin scales from your scalp for instance, you can also pull out the hair from the root or break the hair off.

Other psoriasis related hair loss is usually related to the type of treatments you're using to treat the psoriasis. Using harsh chemical treatments too often for instance, or scrubbing too hard on your head while using the psoriasis treatments can both cause hair loss. One way to help diminish hair loss caused by these reasons is to cut back on how often you use certain products, be more gentle with their use, or even talk to your doctor about trying something that doesn't cause as much of a hair loss problem.

If your scalp becomes inflamed from the psoriasis, this can also cause hair loss. Unfortunately this is something of a catch 22 at times though, because you need to use special psoriasis scalp treatments to treat the inflammation. Again however, talking to your doctor about alternatives can sometimes help.

You might want to try getting out in the sun a little each day. Exposure to the UV rays in sunlight can help clear up an outbreak of psoriasis. Be careful you don't allow yourself to be sunburnt though, because this could cause new psoriasis scales to develop in the sunburn areas.

You could also try out some new fashionable hats - yes there are hats for guys that look great too - or you could even try getting a new hairstyle. Your beautician might even be able to make recommendations of styles that will help mask the psoriasis patches on your scale.

One other idea to help reduce the psoriasis and hair loss problems is to try adding some vitamins and supplements to your daily regimin. Many people report drastic softening and reduction of psoriasis scales when they add omega-3 fatty acids, and these can be gotten easily by simply taking fish oil or flaxseed oil capsules each day.