Yes – psoriasis is an autoimmune disease! While psoriasis can be very painful and intrusive to your life, there is hope! Functional Medicine offers a science-based approach to reversing psoriasis and preventing it from reappearing.
Functional Medicine Doctors like me, address the root cause of why you have psoriasis because it is one of at least 100 different autoimmune disease variations that appear when your central mechanisms are not functioning properly.
Congratulations – it’s fantastic you are here reading this blog because it means you are actively working on taking charge of your health! It’s also critically important because the medical science is clear that if you have psoriasis, your immune system has begun the process of attacking itself and more variations of autoimmune disease are on the way. The data also shows autoimmune disease runs in families. If you have psoriasis, your family members have an increased risk of developing autoimmunity.
These statements should not scare you or steal your hope. Instead I want them to inspire you to keep learning and making changes! When you know how to reverse psoriasis, preventing new autoimmune disease is a logical clear process that works for kids and adults of all ages.
I’ve spent the last 20 years helping infants to adults into their 90s reverse autoimmunity. You can learn exactly how and why autoimmune disease happens and how to reverse and prevent it in my course: Autoimmune Hope
Psoriasis Symptoms
Psoriasis is characterized by rapid skin cell turnover, which leads to the buildup of cells on the surface of the skin. Here are some common psoriasis symptoms:
1. Plaques: These are the most characteristic of psoriasis symptoms. They are raised, red patches covered with a silvery-white buildup of dead skin cells or scales. They can be itchy or painful.
2. Scaling: This psoriasis symptom is where the skin may produce silvery-white scales that are often seen on top of the red plaques.
3. Dry skin: The skin may crack and bleed in some cases, especially when affected areas are on the joints.
4. Itching and burning: Affected areas may feel itchy, burning, or sore.
5. Thickened nails: Nails may become pitted, thickened, or have ridges.
6. Swollen and stiff joints: Psoriatic arthritis affects some people with psoriasis, leading to painful and swollen joints. This is another type of autoimmune disease that can form if you don’t address “why” you got the psoriasis in the first place and make it go away. The medicines that suppress the immune system are advertised on television all the time. They do not do anything to actually address why you got the psoriasis and thus they don’t help prevent new autoimmune disease in the future. They also have profound side effects such as increasing cancer risk and life-threatening infections. Watch the list of potential side effects listed on this commercials very closely. You might say “Yuck, I don’t want any of those things.” Other options exist for you.
7. Red patches in skin folds: This psoriasis symptom is known as inverse psoriasis and can appear as shiny, smooth red patches in areas such as the underarms, under the breasts, or the groin.
8. Pustular psoriasis: This psoriasis symptom is characterized by white pustules (blisters filled with white blood cells) surrounded by red skin. This form can be localized to certain areas, like the hands and feet, or can be widespread.
10. Scalp psoriasis: This can appear as red, itchy areas with silvery scales on the scalp. It might resemble severe dandruff in milder cases.
Home Remedies for Psoriasis
While traditional western allopathic medicine would prescribe medicines that only temporarily address psoriasis symptoms, the best home remedies for psoriasis must address the root cause of why this autoimmune disease has appeared.
You don’t need to see a Functional Medicine Doctor to address the root cause (although it’s always great to have one who can support you through this process), it is possible for you to remedy psoriasis from home by addressing:
- Hormone imbalance or deficiencies
- Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
- Toxicity, including toxic stress
- Infections
- The gut
Anytime you see a skin issue like psoriasis, the first thing you should think of is what’s going on with the gut. As a central mechanism, whatever is going on with the gut is going to express itself in some other way. In the case of psoriasis, it shows itself in the skin.
When addressing your gut health, you will get rid of infections and improve your body’s ability to detox. You will have to address toxic stress or the gut can never heal. Improved gut health will allow you to receive and absorb the vitamins and minerals needed to reverse psoriasis and prevent new autoimmune disease.
Psoriasis Steroid Cream Does Not Address the Root Cause
When people are recommended topical creams for their psoriasis, it may provide some relief for a little while, but the symptoms always seem to come back.
Using steroids and antibiotic creams may reduce inflammation, but they don’t heal the skin. The widespread use of steroid creams, particularly for extensive skin issues, poses a risk as it gets absorbed into the system, essentially functioning like oral steroids. This absorption comes with more downsides, like an increased risk of osteoporosis and vertebral fractures, among so many other things.
Antibiotic creams, which get absorbed into the body, operate like oral antibiotics and disrupt the intestinal microbiome, which just makes the central mechanism gut even worse off.
When you use just psoriasis steroid cream or antibiotic cream treatments, you are chasing the symptoms of the autoimmune disease instead of addressing the root cause of the problem. Checkout my course: Autoimmune Hope to understand exactly why autoimmune disease happens and how to reverse and prevent it. It includes a live monthly Q&A with me and a 100% money back guarantee. Start feeling better today www.DrDavidBilstrom.com/AutoimmuneHope
The role of infections in psoriasis and all autoimmune disease
Infections play a part in every autoimmune and chronic disease. To effectively heal psoriasis or any autoimmune disease, you have to clear all infections.
When the immune system gets disrupted, it tends to attack the body’s weak spots. In psoriasis, the weak spot is the skin. For someone with rheumatoid arthritis, that would be the joints. For multiple sclerosis, it’s the brain.
This is why being a Functional Medicine Doctor is so fulfilling. When I help patients, other practitioners (and you!) address the root cause of autoimmune disease – I know we are working towards preventing hundreds of different diseases. I am confident once you address the root cause of your psoriasis, you are setting your body up for a lifetime of health and disease prevention.
If you are a mom, once you master this for yourself, you will be equipped to help your children and family members also avoid these painful diseases. I strongly recommend you take my course: Autoimmune Hope to understand exactly why autoimmune disease happens and how to reverse and prevent it for yourself and everyone you love.
Psoriasis Natural Treatment – pH Structured Silver Gel
A natural treatment for psoriasis must address the underlying infection and inflammation, I like to recommend using pH Structured Silver Gel topically.
The pH Structured Silver Gel plays a dual role in treating psoriasis naturally. It uses a process to eliminate any potential underlying infection, but it also reduces painful inflammation and aids the healing of damaged tissue.
Healing the skin is an important aspect of psoriasis that is often missed in western allopathic treatments. You don’t want to just get rid of inflammation, which is what psoriasis steroid cream focuses on. What you want to do is heal the skin and just because you get rid of some inflammation, it doesn’t mean the skin cells are going to heal, especially because your skin cells for some reason are a weak spot in your system.
When using the pH Structured Silver Gel topically, if there’s an underlying infection there, the kind that makes the skin a weak spot such as, maybe mold in that spot, the pH Structured Silver Gel will get rid of the infection.
But interestingly enough, you’ll also get rid of inflammation and help damaged tissue heal. And this is what you want. You want to get rid of the inflammation that is very uncomfortable, but you want that damaged tissue to heal as well.
Now when you take care of the reason why you got an autoimmune disease. Your skin will be so ready to heal as you help it heal.
The Science on pH Structured Silver Gel
The original data on pH Structured Silver Gel came from its use in people with burn injuries. Infections often slow down the healing process, but when the pH Structured Silver Gel was applied to burn injuries, not only did it prevent infection, which promoted quicker healing, but the tissue healed even faster.
A great study on the epigenetics of skin cell healing shed light on this process. With autoimmune disease, it’s not just about the genes we have in our cells, but rather which genes are turned on and what genes are turned off (my Autoimmune Hope course explains this in more depth). In psoriasis, we want to turn off harmful genes and turn on the good ones to give the tissue a fighting chance to heal.
From this research, they discovered that there are 88 different genes in a skin cell that are responsible for skin cell healing. When they used pH Structured Silver Gel, it up-regulated the activity of 59 out of those 88 skin cell genes that code for skin cell healing. Essentially, it switched on the genes that facilitate faster healing of skin cells.
Out of these genes, 58 doubled their activity, working twice as hard to repair the tissue. One particular gene, commonly found to run in families and drive familial skin issues, increased its activity by 80 times than what is normal. Isn’t that amazing?
Another wonderful thing about this pH Structured Silver Gel is that it works for much more than Psoriasis
In addition to helping with burns, cuts, scrapes, acne, because this Silver Gel helps repair the tissue through epigenetics, it can help with a wide variety of skin issues such as:
- Eczema (Atopic Dermatitis): A chronic skin condition characterized by itchy, inflamed skin. It typically appears on the arms, behind the knees, and on the face, but can occur anywhere on the body.
- Seborrheic Dermatitis: A common skin condition that mainly affects the scalp, causing scaly patches, red skin, and stubborn dandruff. It can also affect oily areas of the body, such as the face, sides of the nose, eyebrows, ears, eyelids, and chest.
- Rosacea: A chronic skin condition that causes redness and visible blood vessels in your face. It may also produce small, red, pus-filled bumps.
- Lichen Planus: A condition that causes small, itchy, flat-topped bumps on the skin or genitals. It can also appear in the mouth, causing a painful, burning sensation.
- Vitiligo: A condition in which the skin loses its pigment in patches.
- Pityriasis Rosea: A skin rash that often appears on the torso, upper arms, thighs, or neck. It’s characterized by a large, scaly, pink area of skin followed by smaller, pink patches.
- Lupus: A systemic autoimmune disease that can cause a wide range of symptoms, including a butterfly-shaped rash on the face that covers the cheeks and bridge of the nose.
- Scleroderma: An autoimmune disease that causes hardening and tightening of the skin and connective tissues.
- Dermatomyositis: An inflammatory disease that causes a distinctive skin rash and muscle weakness.
- Contact Dermatitis: A red, itchy rash caused by direct contact with a substance or an allergic reaction to it.
A revolution in treating psoriasis naturally: from symptom management to deep healing
When treating psoriasis through the lens of a Functional Medicine Doctor, it fundamentally changes how we approach healing it and preventing it from returning.
Addressing the gut as the central mechanism that is failing is important and your first step.
Then treating the skin (the weak spot) topically with pH Structured Silver Gel actually heals and fixes the epigenetics of why those skin cells are the weak spot in the first place, paving the way for long-term health and wellness.
As part of addressing the gut, you may also need to address hormone imbalance or deficiencies, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, toxicity, including toxic stress and other infections that may be driving disease.
Have hope! Psoriasis is not a lifetime sentence.
Psoriasis is an opportunity to improve your overall health in profound ways.
You can learn more about why autoimmune disease happens and how to reverse it in my course: Autoimmune Hope. It includes one Live Q&A session with me to get your deeper questions answered. What you’ll learn inside the course will change the trajectory of you and your family’s health forever. Which is why it is backed by my 14-day 100% money back guarantee. I look forward to seeing you inside the course and at my next live Q&A!
