When Should I Call My Doctor If I Have Psoriasis?

If you see the signs of a flare up, call your doctor to discuss your psoriasis treatment. In this video, Melissa Levin, MD, explains which symptoms to watch for so that you can let your doctor know as soon as possible before symptoms worsen.

Transcript

00:00

It's actually important to get to know the different symptoms

00:06

of psoriasis so you can actually recognize a flare and communicate this with your doctor. One of the most common symptoms of psoriasis

00:14

are these kind of thick, red patches of skin. They can be, they can have a little silvery scale.

00:21

They can be itchy, they can crack, and they can even bleed. Sometimes they can grow in size. They can be made worse when there's

00:27

any sort of trauma to the area. So if you scratch your skin, that can actually make a psoriasis patch even bigger.

00:33

And sometimes in more serious cases, they can involve a large part of the body. Another common symptom of psoriasis

00:40

is actually fingernail and toenail involvement. So if you start to see that your nail is changing color, it's becoming yellow, becoming a little bit white,

00:48

lifting off the nail bed, or even getting thick and getting crumbly or having little pits in your nail,

00:54

these are changes that we actually see commonly in psoriasis. And it's important to let your doctor know. Another common symptom is actually

01:01

the location of the psoriasis. So common areas of psoriasis are actually the elbows and knees. Another common location is actually the scalp.

01:09

Having psoriasis on your scalp can actually be kind of uncomfortable. You can have scaling, crusting, itchiness, even hair loss

01:17

in some patients. So it's important for you to discuss any sort of psoriasis or any sort of symptoms that you're having on your scalp

01:24

so your doctor can give you an appropriate treatment. Lastly, about 10% to 30% of patients with psoriasis on their skin can actually

01:32

have joint involvement. Psoriatic arthritis is very different from just general arthritis, which is from regular wear and tear.

01:40

Psoriatic arthritis is actually a type of inflammatory arthritis, which can actually be quite serious and require oral medications.

01:47

If you start to develop any swelling or pain in the small joints, particularly in the hands or the fingers, it's

01:53

important to let your doctor know so that they can initiate a proper work-up to see if your joint pain is, in fact, psoriatic arthritis.