Psoriasis – Can We Heal It? Part 2
A number of avenues I have found very helpful in managing psoriasis and associated conditions, you may wish to explore. What I write is only the result of using myself as a test case, a body on which experiments have taken place. Nothing too painful, though, only taking care with what I eat.
As we get older, our bodies become less able to handle the abuse doled out in our earlier years and increasingly sensitive to irritants. We can consider experimenting by cutting out foodstuffs we suspect may be at the root of our concerns.
Most obvious among the foods that irritate and inflame my body’s reactions, is cows’ milk. Yes, I know that milk and milk products have been part of the western human diet for millennia, probably because during the last ice age, all other food sources were buried under several dozen metres of ice. If we had not adapted to drinking milk from our herds of animals we would have starved. However, many westerners struggle to digest milk, and if this is you, perhaps you might consider whether it has any part to play in chronic discomfort. There are four parts of milk that can potentially be challenging for a body to deal with: the calcium, the sugar (lactose/lactase), the proteins (caseins) and the fat.
I first suspecting that milk might be a problem for me because I had three midnight visits to the hospital in agonizing pain. Kidney stones, linked to un-metabolised calcium were found to be the trigger, and it was very easy to remember that, the evening before, I had been drinking milk or eating rice pudding. I began to notice how metabolism changes as we age, making foodstuffs that have previously only caused minor ailments, increasingly difficult to deal with, especially after menopause. All milk products, including yogurt, cheese, butter, ice-cream, milk chocolate, baked goods and biscuits are on the “suspect” list. Yogurt is slightly less difficult than the others, because it contains live microbial cultures which help with its digestion, but even so, I include it on my list of suspects. Milk powder and milk proteins are often added to breakfast cereals, muesli and to fruit bars, so get used to checking packaging. Look at the list of ingredients on that packet of “Oxo” cubes you have flung into the shopping trolley.
If you don’t mind experimenting, I suggest that you eliminate these from your diet for a minimum of two weeks, though a month is more conclusive. If you notice that your knees don’t ache so much, that your skin is less itchy and that you have stopped wheezing, this is the best evidence that, somewhere in your life, you have collected an intolerance to dairy products, and that your body is relieved, now that they are disappearing. During the month, you may wish to experiment with dairy alternatives, such as soya or rice milk, and take a vitamin supplement or a drink with added calcium. After a month, a few cautious mouthfuls of your favourite ice-cream should cause no backlash, but I find it prudent not to have more than one taste in every twenty-four hours or so, as the effects tend to accumulate, and suspect foods need time to clear out of my system.
I need not worry too much about the sceptics who say, “How are you going to get all the calcium you need, though, without your cows’ milk?” and who peer at you over their cups of coffee. I take a calcium supplement, or gather calcium from green leafy vegetables, sesame seeds and bony sardines. In late middle age, the emphasis shifts to retaining what calcium we have, rather than trying to endlessly absorb new calcium. Looking for foods that are alkaline in nature, rather than acidic, will help the body to retain calcium: if the body is too acidic, it “borrows” calcium from our bones to neutralise acid effects.
For this reason, it helps to eliminate or drastically reduce our intake of foods which are overly acidic. Refined foodstuffs such as white sugar, white flour and white fat, are top of the list, as well as tea and coffee. Caffeine adds acid to the body, and the fact that you add cream and sugar do not help. Writers and nutritionists are coming to an understanding that the residue of cows’ milk is itself acidic. So drinking a quart of milk may actually make decalcification worse.
Other foods that you might wish to investigate for their inflaming effects include foods from the deadly nightshade family, among which are potatoes, paprika, tomatoes and bell peppers. I limit my portions of these to about two per week and I have learned that the toxicity in these foods tends to lessen with time, so eating mature potatoes rather than new ones, is helpful.
Learning to manage psoriasis is a life-long concern, but when our strategies succeed, we free ourselves to live without chronic irritation and discomfort. The first step is to notice how the foods we eat affect our health, and to decide that we cannot always expect others to help us, when we ignore the most basic rules of healthy eating. Our bodies work well for us for many years, and we can help them by being considerate and careful feeders, only eating what we know will help us to health.
