I must start by stating that the patches of psoriasis on my feet and ankles have never been formally diagnosed. But I know someone with psoriasis, and my reddened, itchy, silvery-scaled patches look the same. They do not respond to the 20 different lotions or creams I tried; or coconut oil, or D3 applied directly to them. They only pop up in the winter. Which is also a psoriasis pattern.

Since psoriasis is considered an auto-immune disease, I even know what triggered them. When I moved to an area with serious winters, I bought some wool blend socks, and all seemed well for a while. But then I got these terrible patches of reddened, oozy, just awful-looking areas on the tops of my feet and the sides of my ankles. I switched to polar-fleece socks and they cleared right up. Only to return a few years later, as psoriasis.

I never went to the doctor because, based on what I observed in other people, it never seemed to do any good.

And here I am; eating right, climbing 20 flights of stairs a day, supplementing with magnesium and D3 and coconut oil and gelatin (to name favorites.) Everything should work right, dang it!

But this winter, I realized, once again, my itchy patches have returned despite having a humidifier at my home AND office. They need something they aren't getting, obviously. One day the itching started again and as every sufferer knows, this dry skin doesn't respond to lotion. I soaked a paper towel, wrapped it around my ankle, put my sock over it, and was able to get back to work. It was great for stopping the itching!

But when I unwrapped it several hours later, the paper towel had dried out, and the patch not only had stopped itching, it looked better than before. Not enough hydration was my clue. So my response, after researching scar treatments, was Bio-Oil.

I'm about six weeks into it, apply Bio-Oil twice a day, and this not only works for the itchiness, it seems to be healing them! Most of the patches have gone away with only some transient redness; and the itching has stopped entirely.

This suggests that at least some of my problem is mechanical; these damaged cells have lost their ability to retain water, keep nutrients moving, and grow and shed at normal rates. The application of Bio-Oil returns this capacity to the area.

I've also been using it on the backs of my hands and very lightly on my face. Last year my face was terribly dry and flaky, even though coconut oil helped a lot. I have very sensitive skin and even though it has gotten much better, I still have trouble finding a moisturizer that doesn't irritate my skin. I think I've found it now.

I'm just going to apply it all winter... and see what happens next winter. Even if I have to keep applying it... so what? It fixes it. That is ~this close~ to a cure.

Reminds me of how people talk about how they have to keep applying ArmorAll to their car's dash, or it stops working. Well, duh!

Let us know how it works.

Thats intresting, I get scaley patches on my scalp just above my ears, in my hair. They itch! I thought they were pimples, I did my best to leave them alone. BF looked at them once and told me they looked like a scab, but they spread quite a bit. I presumed I had more problems than pimples, but didn't know what to do. It doesn't happen all the time, right now, they are gone. Bio-Oil, very intresting. I will try it the next time I get a break out.

My father suffers from scaley patches on his head. I must tell him about this. Thanks!

Sounds like its doing the trick for your feet which is comforting I imagine.

I've been diagnosed with moderate psoriasis. I have it primarily on my scalp and face, so even though it's not a huge area, it's considered moderate because it's quite visible. I've only taken prescribed topicals for the problem: dermasmooth scalp oil, .05% topical flucocinonide, and .05% desonide cream.

Generally speaking, these treatments keep my psoriasis at mild levels. However, they're not cheap and I've been putting off going to the doctor to get my prescription renewed because I don't feel like spending $200 on this trio of medicins.

What you're doing with the bio-oil sounds similar to an occlusive dressing - in the P world this means applying a remedy and then wrapping it in something to hold in the medicine/moisture, usually saran wrap. When I use my dermasmooth scalp oil treatment I wet my hair, apply the oil, then sleep with a tight plastic shower cap. Kind of annoying, but it does help.

I'm thinking of trying the same technique using plain coconut oil. I still don't have my prescription meds, but I think my recent adoption of LCHF is helping to clear up my P. It's pretty much gone on my face now, and seems to be diminishing on my scalp.

Years ago when I was gaining weight and not watching my diet at all, my P flared up very badly. If I went out on the town and ate a huge, sugary meal, plus a lot of alcohol, I would almost always wake up the next day with a new rash on my face.

Since eating low-carb is less inflammatory, I'm not surprised at all to see my P improving.

BTW, here's some OTC moisturizers I recommend:
- Cetaphil for sensitive skin
- Unscented eucerin, the thick kind that comes in a jar
- Emu oil

I had not run across that, but I did find mention of soaking the affected areas before applying medicine. It was such mentions that led me to super-hydration, so to speak.

So pleased low carb is helping your situation!

My mother has severe psoriasis and has her whole life. I and one of my kids has a very mild type of similar skin rash. In my child I used eucerin all over to moisturize his skin, reduced the bathing as the bathing itself and the hot water strip off the oils. He also eats a very good diet, a lower carb diet than most children. He skips the bread most days, but eats plenty of fruits and vegies and clean meats.

My mother has spent her life going to dermatologiest--those that specialize in psoriasis; and even went to a clinic to be de-scaled. Treatments have changed over the years. Mostly medications of some sort. I do think diet and stress are not as addressed as they could be and should be.

A diagnosis is very important as many skin issues look alike.

Glad you are finding some releif! THe doctors have new things to try and I hope you keep pursing other options, too .

Googling gluten and psoriasis yields lots of links. I believe you're gluten free, but are you fairly obsessive about it? Do you check for common sources of cross-contamination like sharing condiments with gluten-eaters, making sure you don't order fried-food where it is used for both gluten and non-gluten foods? Are you ordering sandwiches and throwing away the bread, eating toppings off pizza crust, etc?

For many people, that's just not good enough. They have to be really scrupulous. I used to read about the extremely stringent requirements that some people follow on celiac.com's forums. Are you sure your vitamins, cosmetics, lotions and all are gluten free?

Autoimmune diseases can be linked to other foods too like dairy, soy, nuts and so on. The mechanism is thought to be molecular mimicry and a leaky gut.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/psori...s.aspx#/slide-9

I did have a rheumatologist that was pretty smart about gluten, although I think he figured it out after I was a patient, but I used to see he was giving talks on rheumatological diseases and gluten.

Psoriatic arthritis is one of the things that can go along with psoriasis.

On the subject of gluten intolerances, my neighbor is gluten intolerant. He eats here about once a month, he's happy because he knows I won't accidently feed him anything with gluten and I won't cross contaminate. I don't worry about that with me, but his son told me he's very particular about that.

At my sons party, I was very careful to watch the dip bowl. The first thing my mother did was try to stick a broken cracker in the dip bowl even though I told her not to. We explained why, again, and I handed her a little dish just for dip. Then came ice cream and cake, I was cutting the cake and serving it. She was serving the ice cream, I hadn't noticed but apparently she had used the ice cream spoon to move a piece of cake over, then used that spoon to scoop the ice cream out. He saw this and told her he would scoop out his own ice cream. Everyone looked at him oddly, but he took the spoon and washed it off, then, scooped his ice cream out of the other side of the bucket. She hadn't touched that side yet, it was not contaminated by the spoon that had, just for a moment touched a piece of cake. Thats how serious some people have to be. Thankfully I don't have to do that, I can fry my meat after flour was fried in the same grease (try not to but sometimes thats just life.) Mom still had that deer in the head-light look after he explained that she had touched the cake with the spoon.

Apparently if gluten is slipped in, even a very small amount he gets diarhea and hives. Would total gluten free help other skin conditions and soriasis? My ex-mother in law is covered with scaley, itchey patches. Drs can do nothing to help her.

It might. Some people are very, very sensitive.