Psoriasis, commonly known as “psoriasis”, is similar to “white H, snake lice, snake wind, corn sores, silver money madness, dry ringworm, loose skin ringworm, white ringworm” and other diseases in ancient Chinese medical texts, and is a common chronic, recurrent, inflammatory skin disease, often manifested by dense papules or large red plaques covered with flaking. It is often characterized by dense papules or large red plaques covered with flaking, often accompanied by itching, and seriously affects the physical and mental health of patients. Generally speaking, bathing can remove scales, clean the skin, relieve dryness and itching, improve blood circulation and metabolism, promote the absorption of topical drugs, enhance the therapeutic effect, and help improve the condition of psoriasis. The problems commonly encountered in the bathing of psoriasis patients are described as follows.
1, what type of psoriasis patients are suitable for bathing?
Since psoriasis lesions produce a large number of scales every day, in order to remove scales and relieve itching, all psoriasis patients need to take a bath every day in general. However, because the clinical performance of different types of psoriasis is different, the bathing methods and methods chosen need to be different, such as acute dripping psoriasis can be shower-based, hypertrophic plaque type should be mainly soaking, large-area erythrodermic type water temperature should be strictly controlled, pustular type is suitable for showering, and antiseptic can be added to prevent infection when bathing.
2.What are the precautions for psoriasis patients before taking a bath?
Most of the precautions before bathing for psoriasis patients are the same as those for those who do not have psoriasis, such as not being able to take a bath immediately after meals, not taking a bath immediately after exercise, not taking a bath when hungry, not taking a bath in the case of other serious diseases that are unstable and taking a bath to pay attention to the patient’s underlying diseases, such as severe hypertension, heart disease, and not suitable for full-body bathing for the elderly and infirm.
In addition, psoriasis patients in the bath should also pay special attention to improving the temperature of the environment, to prevent cold and cold after the bath and cause aggravation of psoriasis. Arthritic psoriasis patients, because of unfavorable joint activities, we should pay special attention to the safety of the bathing environment, pay attention to the installation of anti-slip mats, installation of safety handrails, pagers and other measures.
3.How should the bathing water temperature of psoriasis patients be controlled?
Unlike normal skin, because psoriasis lesions lack normal keratin layer protection, they are more likely to be stimulated by water temperature when bathing. Therefore, when the water temperature is high (above 40℃), it will stimulate the lesions and produce adverse effects, while when the water temperature is too low (below 37℃), it cannot soften the scales and promote the blood circulation of the skin, which is not conducive to the fading of the lesions and is easy to cause patients to catch cold. Our clinical experience proves that the general water temperature should be slightly warm or hot to the patient, about 38-39℃ is the most suitable.
In addition, the water temperature should be selected according to the different types of skin lesions, such as drippy psoriasis and bright red lesions with thin scales, pustular lesions and exudative lesions, which should not receive too strong stimulation, and the water temperature can be relatively low; while for hypertrophic plaque psoriasis, the water temperature can be relatively high. It is necessary to emphasize in particular that erythrodermic lesions, especially in the acute stage of erythrodermic lesions, due to the large area of the rash, extensive expansion of capillaries, and the involvement of sweat pores at the lesions, can not sweat normally, resulting in the reduction of the patient’s thermoregulatory function, so the water temperature and time of bathing should be strictly controlled, and the water temperature should be kept at about 38℃ as the most appropriate.
4.How should the frequency of bathing and the time of each bath be controlled?
A distinctive feature of psoriasis lesions is that they produce a large number of flakes every day, therefore, psoriasis patients should take a bath at least once a day, and when the lesions are thicker and the scales are more numerous, they can take a bath twice a day.
Since psoriasis patients have a large number of psoriasis lesions that lose the protection of the normal keratin layer, if the bath time is too long, it is easy to stimulate the lesions, or even lead to skin dehydration, while the bath time is too short to soften the lesions, remove the flakes and fail to achieve the purpose of the bath, so the bath time for psoriasis patients should be appropriate, generally 20 to 40 minutes each time is the best.
If the water temperature is suitable and the patient’s tolerance is greater, the bathing time can be longer, while the water temperature is low or high and the patient’s tolerance is poor, it should be shorter. In short, the maximum degree of bathing should not stimulate the skin lesions, patients do not feel fatigue, no discomfort as the degree.
5.What are the precautions for psoriasis patients when taking a bath?
First of all, different types of psoriasis should take different bathing methods. If the rash is new and mainly in the form of drops, or if the rash is suddenly aggravated by flushing around the body, or if the rash emits a small local area, a shower should be appropriate and the bathing time should be relatively short; if the rash is thick and persists for a long time, the whole body or local bathing should be chosen and the bathing time can be relatively long.
Secondly, correct and reasonable bathing can help softening and shedding of skin lesions, improve the appearance of skin lesions, improve skin blood circulation, facilitate the penetration of topical drugs and enhance their efficacy, and promote the improvement of the disease; unsuitable bathing, such as bathing at too high a temperature, too long, or excessive rubbing of the lesions and other adverse stimulation of the skin lesions, will aggravate the inflammatory reaction of the rash, promote capillary expansion and congestion, and aggravate the condition of psoriasis. Such as in the acute rash period, if excessive scrubbing and scalding skin, can occur isomorphic reaction, so that the rash increased, and even stimulate erythrodermic psoriasis.
6.How to choose different bathing methods such as hot spring bath, seawater bath or herbal medicine bath?
Although some studies have shown that hot spring baths or seawater baths can improve the condition or even make the condition completely relieved, because the minerals contained in hot springs or seawater in different geographical locations are different and psoriasis is a disease with complex etiology, the effect is different for different patients, and some patients may have their condition aggravated after treatment. Due to the lack of convincing test observation evidence for the treatment of hot springs or sea water in various places, if any psoriasis patients are interested in these therapies, they can try soaking for 5-10 times first if the conditions allow, and if the response is good, they can continue, if the response is not good, it is not recommended to continue the application.
Chinese medicine bath therapy, is through the bath decoction of Chinese medicine single or compound, so that the drug through the skin, orifices, Yu points and other parts of the blood into the meridians, play its role in dredging the meridians, harmonize the qi and blood, detoxification, remove blood stasis, support the righteousness of the evil. In addition, the warming effect of herbal baths can also sedate, stop itching, soothe, and unblock the peripheral couples and harmonize qi and blood. The clinical literature reports that herbal medicine bath can be used for all types of symptoms, among which blood dryness and blood stasis are the most suitable, but in the case of blood heat, if the rash is bright red or progresses rapidly due to excessive heat toxicity, the medicine bath should not be applied to avoid irritation. Chinese medicinal baths need to be applied under the guidance of a physician, and the principle of drug selection should be to avoid allergies and drug stimulation.
5.What are the precautions for psoriasis patients after bathing?
As the bath can remove most of the scales, psoriasis patients should pay attention to keeping warm and cold and prevent the occurrence of colds after bathing, in addition to applying topical drugs such as soft, moisturizing and anti-inflammatory ointments or creams immediately to increase the therapeutic effect of drugs, and not applying irritating topical drugs such as tinctures and tar preparations. This can also increase the effect of ultraviolet radiation if narrow-spectrum ultraviolet radiation treatment is performed after external bathing.