PSORIASIS : A Manifestation of Skin Allergy.
Years of research and practice at our clinics has accumulated enough evidence to
help us arrive at a hypothesis where Allergy lies at the helm of most of the diseases
and Psoriasis is one of them. Allergy (Greek: allos, other + ergon, work = altered
reaction) is an abnormal and individual hypersensitivity to substances that are
ordinarily harmless and which results in various types of reactions.
Why does a person develop allergy?
Normally, a person's immune system clearly distinguishes between harmful and harmless
foreign bodies and it reacts only to harmful bodies like various pathogenic bacteria
and virus. When immune system fails to recognize harmless bodies as "harmless"
it reacts to them and produces various symptoms in the form of allergic manifestations.
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Mechanism Of Allergic Response
When an allergen enters our body, the IgE and the allergen forms a complex. This
complex then binds to the mast cell. As a result the mast cell bursts and releases
histamine. This histamine produces allergic symptoms such as redness, swelling,
heat, itching etc.
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Types Of Allergy
Exogenic allergy is caused by various external allergens like industrial wastes,
chemicals, insecticides, pesticides etc. Eventually, all allergens seem to cause
gradual changes in the genetic make up and subsequently the allergy becomes Endogenic.
The body tissues get 'sensitized' to various allergens and this leads to hypersensitivity
reactions. These 'sensitized' response characteristics are passed on to the succeeding
generations. The fundamental cause of all allergies, therefore, is endogenic and
in most cases it runs in the family tree of the patient.
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Often allergy remains dormant in the patient's body system until a situation arises
when the patient's immune system is at low guard and his resistance is highly compromised.
'Physical stress states' such as surgery, infections, serious diseases, pregnancy,
old age etc. are some of the conditions because of which body gets predisposed to
attacks by allergens. Some of the commonest allergic diseases alternate in a patient's
life. A patient suffering from eczema in childhood may suffer from Bronchial Asthma
in adult hood. Usually there would be a history of Hay fever, Urticaria , Eczema
, Asthma, Arthritis etc. in the family.
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