Normally, new skin cells need about 28 days to migrate from deep within your skin to the surface where they replace dead skin cells. If you have psoriasis, the cycle is compressed into about four days. Skin cells pile up, causing distinctive red, bumpty patches covered with white scales. These often develop on the knees, elbows, and scalp.

Psoriasis is a chronic, non-contagious skin disease which doctors and scientists believe there is no cure for. Modern medical science treats the symptoms of this condition, with topical ointments or internal prescription drugs which try to suppress the body’s immune system. Herbal remedies however, address psoriasis with a whole body approach, because it’s believed that the problem actually stems from a deeper issue within the body.

Psoriasis occurs when the body’s immune system is over reacting to something. Doctors believe the immune system is simply working wrong, so they try to suppress it with dangerous prescription drugs. Herbalists know however, that when the body’s immune system is doing something, it’s usually doing it for a reason.

Natural Remedies

• Take a hot bath. Five minutes before getting out add vegetable oil
• Use creams containing capsaicin such as Zostrix and Capzasin-P
• Take any herb containing psoralens and spend time in the sunlight
• Rub mashed avocado on psoriasis patches
• Rub oil from Brazil nuts on psoriasis patches

Regular skin growth happens about once every thirty days. The body creates new skin cells deep below the surface, and those new cells slowly rise over the course of about a month. Once those new skin cells reach the surface, the existing skin cells have died and are ready to be shed. People who have psoriasis however, push new skin cells to the surface in just three to five days instead. This is much too rapid, and the surface skin hasn’t had time to die off yet, and since it’s not yet ready to shed, the skin starts piling up into thick accumulations referred to as plaques.

Psoriasis plaques are usually thick, rough, dry, scaly patches of skin on various areas of the body. The plaques usually show up on the elbows, knees and scalp, but they can also appear anywhere on the body, such as the legs, hands, feet and ankles.

Psoriasis is thought to be caused by a problem with the body’s own immune system. It sees something wrong somewhere, thus it tries to push new skin to the surface – either to further protect itself or to rid itself of toxins built up within. And this is one of the ways modern medical science and herbal specialists disagree.

From an herbalist perspective, when chronic eruptions of this sort appear on the skin, and they’re not related to allergies or bacterial infections, the root cause is usually a clogged or unhealthy colon, or problems with the liver. When these areas are not working properly inside your body, it is unable to rid itself effectively of the build up of toxins, wastes, and poisons within. And when the body is not able to rid itself of poisons through the normal means of elimination, it trys to get rid of them through the skin instead.

So, the whole body approach to solving psoriasis problems, is to cleanse and help your body’s major organs start functioning effectively again. This can be accomplished through a full body detox and colon cleansing techniques.