Psoriasis Care - Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is an ancient health care system that involves many different practices employed by practitioners who have often inherited the skills from family predecessors. The administration of a wide selection of different herbs and extracts combined in unique and specific formulations for each individual patient means that it is very hard to objectively study TCM as far as psoriasis is concerned. TCM comes in oral, topical and injectable preparations.

In China and now most Western countries, many herbal preparations, both oral and topical, are available for treating psoriasis. Some of these make the skin more sensitive to ultraviolet light and are combined with traditional phototherapy. Other preparations concentrate on detoxifying the body and providing a balance of essential phyto-nutrients which are often lacking in the diet. These formulations, provided they are done by qualified and experienced doctors experienced in TCM, can be effective in treating autoimmune disease judging from the amount of anecdotal evidence that exists.

There are thousands of anecdotal reports of good results from using TCM but there are also a lot of reports of products deliberately being tainted with steroid drugs and causing skin thinning and side effects. In one analysis done in London on 14 products purchased from different suppliers of TCM for psoriasis, 12 of the products had steroid drugs in them with several of them containing steroids over the limit you could obtain on prescription from your doctor! We would advise you to be wary about any TCM formulation and ensure it is from a well recognised and reliable source.

Why not visit our Features section to read about some of the treatments for psoriasis, including Chinese Medicine.