Psoriasis, Kim Kardashian, and Me!

The news that Kim Kardashian has recently been diagnosed with psoriasis may not seem of that much importance to much of the world, but that has really struck a chord with me, and probably a large percentage of the (approximately) 125 million other suffers worldwide.

You see, I’ve always seem Kim Kardashian as being pretty perfect, as I’m sure many of you have too; and whilst I am sorry that she has this condition, I think she’s got real guts to put it out there for all to see, and judge, and judge they have.

I’ve seen some awful comments on the online stories about it; people believing that Kim is being ‘shallow’ and ‘vain’ and should ‘get over herself’ and on the surface I can understand why somebody (who has no immediate compassion) may just think that this is another celebrity overreaction to something fairly minor – but I really don’t believe this is the case, and I’ll explain why.

Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease, one that I have had since about the age of 8, it’s a skin condition that can occur at any age and on ANY part of the body; from the scalp to well... anywhere that you have skin, and it can spread from small patches to almost full body coverage. It’s such an awful thing to suffer with, and is something I have never completely learned to live with, and probably never will, and is also a huge reason why you’ll probably never see my right hand doing a NOTD shot.

The reason for this being that I am very conscious of, and paranoid about what my psoriasis looks like, and more importantly how other people may view my psoriasis (will they wonder if it's contagious etc, it's not by the way, although it can be hereditary) – especially since getting into beauty blogging. I’m always very self conscious about the ugly psoriasis on the fingers of my right hand, and aware that even on my left hand, my skin isn’t always a picture of perfection (which is why, sometimes I may leave a finger out of shot).

My psoriasis goes around the edge of my hairline and ears, I have it on my elbows and also (as mentioned) my fingers. The symptoms (so to speak) are unsightly patches of red skin, often covered with dry skin that usually needs exfoliating on a daily basis. It can be painful, especially when I knock it and end up breaking the skin – and this is especially the case on my fingers where the skin can get particularly weak and where the knocks are more frequent.

If the weak skin and unsightly nature of psoriasis wasn’t bad enough, then the fact that it can cause psoriatic arthritis is just another kick in the teeth to those, who like me, have both conditions; adding severe pain all over the body into the equation.

There is no cure, and any treatments that are available to try to alleviate symptoms usually come with their own set of problems – but I won’t go into all that as it’s quite in-depth (and boring) and this isn’t a medical blog. I just really wanted to explain the condition a little bit more from my own personal experiences, and hopefully soften the view of those people that thought that Kim Kardashian was being a diva over something minor.

Make-up can slightly disguise, but never fully cover the condition!

I hope you don’t mind me posting such a personal and potentially boring post up, it took a lot of guts for me to put it out there about this as it’s something I would usually rather avoid acknowledging, and actually get embarrassed about.

What do you think about Kim having this condition? Do any of you suffer with psoriasis too?