Psoriasis Linked To Tripled Risk Of Heart Attack

Hence the heartbreak of psoriasis...

Kind of brings new meaning to "The Heartbreak Of Psoriasis."

This is very interesting. My daughter, who is now 9, has Graves disease. Before she was diagnosed at 4, one of the symptoms was that her resting heart rate was somewhere in the high 150s/low 160s, setting her up for a heart attack even at that young age. I initially took her to the doctor because she had developed what appeared to be severe psoriasis in what we call her "elbow-pits."

To this day, when she starts do develop even a hint of psoriasis, I know that her medication is off. The specialists have told me that it is unrelated other than the drying out of her skin...but I have always seen the correlation between her resting heart rate and the skin problems...and can tell you we ask for blood tests to double check her med levels. I have never been wrong.

Crazy maybe, but not wrong. LOL. Thanks for the post.

Are you sure about that diagnosis? The inside elbow surface is much much more typical of eczema (atopic dermatitis).

Previous studies have linked other inflammatory illnesses, such as rheumatoid arthritis, to cardiovascular problems.

Inflammatory processes are associated with many diseases, including cancer. Preventing or minimizing inflammation wherever it's found in the body should be emphasized.

My son's second grade teacher died of ovarian cancer about a month ago. She had terrible psoriasis up until about 6 months before she died.

You know, you are right. It is raised hive like things that are really itchy...but it may be eczema. Thanks for pointing that out. We had planned to treat the arm thing once the Graves was under control...but viola! it disappeared, so it was never officially dealt with.

I just read this very quickly and thought "See, I'm NOT crazy." Thereby actually giving the doctors' opinions way more credence. LOL.

Oh well. This is why I'm not a scientist. : D.

My mom had Graves Disease, they ended up killing the thyroid with radioactive iodine and then she had to take medicine so she could regulate her metabolism.

They will do that eventually. For now, they need to keep her thyroid suppressed, but still keep it functioning as well as possible until she is finished growing. Probably about the time she heads to college.

I often wonder what happened to her preschool years...but then I remember that at age four she had a bone-age of 8. She lost most of her baby teeth by the time she was four and a half, and was about eight to twelve inches taller than her cousin who is about the same age.

It was really something. She's still ahead of the curve...but not nearly that far ahead, so they've done a good job.

FWIW, Graves is what Barbara Bush Senior had. It's a pretty common disease in adults, although a much rarer in children, especially children that young. They believe it was kick-started by a virus, actually.

I know its a very scary disease, my mom went from 120 to about 70lbs when she had it and literally looked like she was a walking skeleton, I wonder if thats where they get its name from?

IIRC, it's the name of the Doctor who discovered it, but I'm not sure. It was pretty scary, I'll have to tell you. My daughter was a skeleton as well. But she could eat two adult Mexican Restaurant meals and be hungry in a half an hour.

Unbelievable what it does to a person.

I am on my 3rd doctor who is trying to figure out what I have. I get outbreaks of little blisters between the webbing of my fingers. Extremely itchy, and once scratched, it oozes a clear fluid. Then, it dries out and the skins cracks. A week later, the process repeats. Been this way for months.
1st doc- Contact dermatitis.
2nd doc- scabies.
3rd doc- Fungal infection
All 3 treated me for what they thought it was. Nothing has helped. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Wow, I have it right now. Have had it for about 5 weeks and this is the 4th outbreak right on top of the same places, over and over.

I thought it was an allergy, because it presented itself exactly the same way my contact dermatitis did, from poison ivy, more than a decade ago. And *that* was just like my metal allergy, to nickel and other non-gold base metals, when against my skin for a prolonged period of time (like the rivet on the back of the waist button on jeans).

It starts like tiny insect bites and I'm fooled every time, thinking that's all it is. I kinda scratch just a little bit. Next thing you know, there are tiny blisters popping out all around the original 1-2 bumps.

This time is much different from those others, which were years ago. It's mostly on the tops (backs) of my hands, more on the left than right. It's all across the upper part, towards the bottoms of the fingers. It "spread" (it doesn't really *spread* per se) to the webs between my fingers when it broke out the 2nd or 3rd time. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

The first outbreak, I traced it to what I thought was some damage I had done while preparing some Thanksgiving sugar pumpkins. I had scraped out 3 of them, holding the spoon handle very close to the bowl, and then repeatedly scraping the flesh out of the raw ones - each time, hitting the tops (backs) of my hands on the inside of the small pumpkins.

I would change hands once in a while, but did most of it with my left hand and a little bit with my right hand. I didn't notice any cuts or roughed-up skin, but it surely might have been there - little micro-abrasions.

Anyway, about 3-4 days later, I handled some jalapeno peppers when making jelly and my outbreak occurred probably 2-3 days after that. It was just terrible on my left hand, hundreds of small clear blisters erupting.

I knew not to scratch after that first accidental time - I've found a way to just run it under cold water till the itching stops. My doctor back on the poison ivy dx had told me never to use hydrocortisone cream, as it would leave scars. I can't afford a doctor now, so I just used the Domeboro Burow's solution he recommended for soaking the blisters, taking Benadryl and Advil or Tylenol, and using an oatmeal-based lotion or cream - or calamine.

My left hand really looked bad - all those blisters had to burst and crust over, in order to know it was healing. It was a real mess - looked like flesh-eating bacteria had attacked me. Hurt like heck, too. The worst was when it erupted on the palms of my hands - aaarrrggh!

I put gauze over both hands just to go to the store (the right hand just had red blisters on a finger knuckle, but was developing the tiny bumps elsewhere on the top of my hand by the 2nd week).

When it was almost gone, it came back again with a vengeance, which was not anything my allergies had ever done. A FReeper suggested maybe it was shingles, which several others had experienced. I yelled "no!" at her because I have so many medical problems I can't pay for - I just didn't need another chronic something.

I went into the med symptoms online and the only picture my outbreak matched was shingles. That also meant I could go get some hydrocortisone cream, so I did and it has been a godsend for the itching. Clears it all right up, right away. It's hard to keep it on my hands for long periods of time, because you have to wash and do things, but it does stop the messy part of the advance of the blisters.

That's all I know. The same hands that looked like Freaksville a week ago, even 3 days ago, look perfectly normal right now. There are a few spots left and I can feel that they're there, but they don't bother me. I do know that each outbreak, now that I know it's there, has been directly because of something I was stressing out about.

It's related to the chicken pox virus, so there really isn't anything that can be done medically - altho some people do go get a shot of something from their doctors.

Hmmmmmm. Being in the military, I received a series of chicken pox vaccine, one in September, and 1 in October. I have had shingles before as a kid. It was on my side and it left me with a pretty good sized scar. But the shingles really hurt, and the blisters on my hands don't. They just itch like crazy. And this started before those shots so I think I might rule that out.

I am seeing another doc on Monday and will let you know what she says. Good luck with yours. I know how frusterating it can be!

I've never had shingles before, so don't know what it's *supposed* to feel like, but everyone I've talked to who has had them has said the same thing - that they're very painful. And most have had them on their torsos, not hands - so you're probably right.

This rash only hurt when the blisters had crusted over and then cracked open - but the spots do hurt now and then, as if they're on fire under the skin. That's right before the itching and eruptions start.

Someone suggested lupus, but I didn't have any of the other symptoms. My friend who had a terrible shingles outbreak on her stomach for 3 months, which later came and went for 3 years in various intensities, thought my hand looked like it was psoriasis - as in this article. I just don't think so - she saw it when it was well and the cortisone cream was dried and peeling off - lol, it wasn't dried skin.

I had another "theory" on mine, but it was another allergen or possibly fungus. This year was a bad year for pumpkin mold, worst in ages - I thought perhaps I got some kind of fungal thing, like athlete's foot - but I couldn't find anything to address that specifically.

Also, I had been working a jigsaw puzzle and had the pieces out on a white surface - I saw some paper mites (almost microscopic) moving around and my first instinct had been that those mites had bitten me and my system overreacted. My immunity is very low right now due to some extreme stress.

The little bumps *seemed* like they could've been bites from mites. However, when it came back right on top of itself, I ruled that out. Hadn't been near the puzzle.

I don't know what scabies is/are, but maybe I'll check it out. I know my GP won't have any better idea than I do what this is because he just calls it all contact dermatitis, even poison ivy, when I know exactly what it is.

All I know is I love hydrocortisone cream now! The marks *do* stay there, however. Please do let us know what you find out.