Psoriasis is not a contagious disease and is rather a hereditary one.However even if someone is suffering from psoriasis there need to be a trigger to develop it.Among these triggers there are stress,skin injury,infections and certain drugs.

Stress

In many people the cause of psoriasis has been stress.It has been found that stress can aggravate an existing psoriasis disease or trigger it for the first time.

Coping with stress

Stigma
A stigma is something that other people think as negative and this stigma can give rise to lower self esteem which in turn leads to stress.Dealing with the stigma can help in reducing stress.

Hypnosis
Relaxation and meditation can help in the reduction stress.It has been found that people suffering from psoriasis who listen to meditation-based relaxation has been cleared faster than those who do not listen to these tapes.

Faith Healing
There are a lot of people who claims that putting their faith in God has helped them in dealing with their stress.There are also people who claims that faith in Jesus ahs cleared their psoriasis.


Skin injury
Psoriasis tends to appear sometimes in areas of the skin that has been injured.This is known as "Koebner phenomenon".Luckily if found early on this type of psoriasis can treated.

Infections
Allergies and Strep infection can both trigger psoriasis on certain people

Medicines-triggered psoriasis
There are certain drugs that tend to trigger psoriasis.This include lithium,inderal,antimalarials,idomethacin and quinidine

Lithium: Used to treat depression. Lithium aggravates psoriasis in about half of those with psoriasis who take it.

Inderal: This high blood pressure medication worsens psoriasis in about 25 percent to 30 percent of patients with psoriasis who take it. It is not known if all high blood pressure (beta blocker) medications worsen psoriasis, but they may have that potential. Sometimes other medications can be substituted.

Antimalarials: Quinacrine, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine may cause a flare of psoriasis, usually two to three weeks after the drug is taken. But there are not many substitutes.

Indomethacin: This drug is used to treat arthritis and is known to have worsened some cases of psoriasis. Other anti-inflammatories usually can be substituted.

Psoriasis Treatments- Biologic Treatments

This form of treatment for psoriasis involves the taking of medications that are taken internally in the form of pills and injection. But there are fear that these treatments are highly toxic and careful medical supervision should be done by a qualified physician on the patient.

This is one reason why this form of treatment is rarely used and is done only after all the other treatments have failed.
The majority of drugs used for the systemic treatment of psoriasis are immunosuppressant drugs which tend to focus on the assumption that psoriasis is a immune-mediated disease.

A new form of systemic treatments for psoriasis is now used and which is known as Biologics. Biologics are proteins that prevent the immune process that are involved in psoriasis and have the advantage of focusing on the specific aspect of the immune system that causes the disease unlike immunosuppressant drugs.

However this type of treatment should not be taken if your immune system is already affected by another disease or you are currently fighting against an infection. Do not hesitate to seek the help of your doctor.

However new research should be done on this new form of systemic treatments for psoriasis to know whether there are some adverse effect on the body through the use of this treatment.

Sunlight effect on psoriasis

This type of treatment known as Phototherapy relies on the concept that exposure to sunlight for a certain period of time tend to have a positive effect on psoriasis which can go as far as clearing it. For some time the way that light work on psoriasis was not well understood but now it is known that the ultraviolet (UV) light found in sunlight contains the therapeutic property to cure psoriasis.

UVB has the most beneficial treatment on psoriatic plaques and the effect can be enhanced by exposing the psoriasis skin to the UVB several times a week over a period of time. However this treatment should be carried out under specialist supervision as excessive exposure to sunlight can cause skin cancer.

Phototherapy treatments are done in various ways:

1. The Excimer laser which emits a high-intensity beam of ultraviolet light B (UVB) and is indicated in the case of mild to moderate psoriasis

2. Pulsed dye laser is a kind of laser treatment that seeks to destroy the tiny blood vessels that irrigate the psoriasis lesion. There are however some risks of secondary effect that is associated with such treatments.

3. Natural Sunlight

This type of treatment relies on the natural light of the sun to cure psoriasis. Only short exposition is recommended. It is important that you talk to a doctor first especially if you are following a topical treatment as this can increase the risk of sunburn.

Phototherapy treatment are usually combined with other psoriasis treatment such as topical treatment to enhance the curing effect on psoriatic plaques.

However there are conflicting views on this treatment form some researchers as it is not known why people that are found in African countries for example suffer from psoriasis if there is a curing effect from sunlight.

More research is currently under way to know the effect of phototherapy on psoriasis and it is hoped that more efficient phototherapy treatment is developed.

Psoriasis topical treatments

This type of treatment is usually used at the beginning of the psoriasis treatment. Topical treatments consist of ointments, lotions, body bath and creams that are used locally on the skin. These treatments which are applied to the psoriatic plaques help to reduce the inflammation, remove the built-up scale and skin turnover. The topical treatments are usually made of coal tar, corticosteroids and vitamins D derivatives and are used externally on the skin. Scalp psoriasis has their own presentations such as lotions and shampoos. Topical treatments have the disadvantages of irritating the skin and also stain the clothing. Some ingredients also have a bad odor. Moreover these products should be used under medical supervision to prevent secondary effects from happening. Also withdrawal of some corticosteroids treatments have thought to aggravate the psoriatic plaques and caused the pustular form of the disease. Topical treatments have yield some mixed results. There are people that claim that their psoriasis has completely cleared with the treatments while others are not that satisfied. On the other hand the topical treatment is likely to be a long term one. The impact of topical treatments can further be enhanced by combining it with other treatments for psoriasis.

Causes of psoriasis

Psoriasis is a skin condition that has not yet been fully understood. There are various assumptions on what the causes of psoriasis might be.What is sure is that psoriasis is caused by a disorder of excessive growth and reproduction of skin cells.

However the causes of multiplication of the skins cells is still not known. Another view point is that psoriasis is caused by a deficiency in the immune system. This deficiency causes the skin cells to reproduce themselves actively. What causes the immune deficiency has not well been understood but there are proof that with the use of medicines to cure the immune systems, psoriasis plaques tend to disappear.
However research on animals has not been successful in proving the immune-mediated model of psoriasis. Psoriasis is also a disease that tend to worsen or improve without apparent reasons.There are some factors that act as triggers in the outbreak of psoriasis.A list of psoriasis triggers can be found at the link below.
It is thought that stress can cause an outbreak of the disease and usually the first major outbreak of psoriasis come after a period of stress in the life of an individual. Infections, seasons and climatic conditions are also thought to have an effect on psoriasis.

What is psoriasis

This question is hard to answer for scientists. What is known so far is that psoriasis is a skin disease that affects all part of the skin and the scalp. It is believed that this disease is an immune-mediated one but there are also some other school of thoughts on this disease such as lack of vitamin D and the lack of sunshine. Although the cause of psoriasis is unknown, it is thought that the disease has a genetic component.

The disease manifests itself in the form of red scaly patches that appear on the whole body and the scalp. These patches are called psoriasis lesions or psoriasis plaques. These patches cause inflammation of the skin where skin rapidly multiplies itself and form white patches which are scaly and dry.
These plaques appear mainly on the elbow, knees and the scalp but can cover any part of the body (including the nails both fingernails and toenails). Careful care should be taken not to confuse psoriasis on the scalp with dandruff. Dandruff will go away with some ordinary shampoo but not psoriasis which requires further treatment.

So far there is no definite treatment for psoriasis that has been developed

Psoriasis can have different degree of severity which can range from some localized patches to whole body coverage. Although psoriasis is not contagious it can cause some devastating effect on the morale of people suffering from psoriasis. People are not able to wear some type of clothes just to cover their lesions and this is a cause of lost of self-esteem.

Although researches are being conducted throughout the world to find a cure, Psoriasis remains very challenging to be treated but there are some treatments that can keep the lesions under treatment. This should allow the people to lead a normal life.