In modern medicine, psoriasis is divided into four types.
The first type is psoriasis vulgaris. Patients affected by it usually suffer from a skin lesion on the head, sacral region, and limbs. The second type is erythrodermic psoriasis. Patient with it suffers from widespread diffuse flush, swelling, and exfoliation of the skin. The third one is pustular psoriasis, which can affect the whole body.
The fourth one is psoriasis arthritis/Psoriasisgigt, which leads to joint damage. It`s rarely seen in China. Professor Zhang, would you please talk about what psoriasis is from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine. In Western medicine, it is divided into different types, including psoriasis vulgaris, erythrodermic psoriasis, pustular psoriasis and rarely seen psoriasis arthritis. Psoriasis arthritis most commonly affects foreigner while hardly affecting Chinese people. In traditional Chinese medicine(TCM), it is divided into the following types.
The first type is blood-heat psoriasis; the second is blood-deficiency-and dryness-in-heat psoriasis. A disease is usually referred to a syndrome in TCM. So, they`re also called blood-heat syndrome, and blood-deficiency-and-dryness-in-heat syndrome. The third is pimple-affected-skin psoriasis also known as the pimple-affected-skin syndrome. The fourth is a hot-pathogenic-factor-and-weakness syndrome. What are the symptoms of blood-heat psoriasis? Let`s talk about skin diseases, instead of internal medicine. This disease is characterized by vivid red rashes and easily scratched-off scales. When you scratched off a bright and thin membrane, that spot would bleed even after being touched very lightly. The course of this disease is short. We call it blood-heat psoriasis. The second type is blood-deficiency-and-dryness-in-heat psoriasis. There`s a theory in TCM, `Long course of the disease would cause weakness`, isn`t right? A patient who suffers from the disease for over a month and is still in fever would be suffering from weakness and fever. He would have bright red rashes. For the first type, the rashes are a vivid red, while these rashes are light red for this type.
That`s an important difference. Also, though the crusting on the patient’s skin is easy to turn white, it hardly exfoliates. It`s already dry as the word `dryness` in heat` shows. The third type is pimple-affected-skin psoriasis. This disease is characterized by dark red rashes with hard crusting. When you try to scratch off the crusting with your nail, it would be hard to make it. This is called pimple-affected-skin psoriasis. What is this called in modern medicine? It is called psoriasis vulgaris. What is hot-pathogenic-factor-and-weakness syndrome called in modern medicine? It is called pustular psoriasis.
What`s its syndrome on a patient`s skin? The patient would have swelling rashes, whose skin would roll like that affected by psoriasis vulgaris. For a patient affected by psoriasis vulgaris, there would be skin lesion and rashes. Things are different with pustular psoriasis. Probably a large area of skin would be red and swelling. The skin would look pretty thin, and scale wouldn`t be thick. If the scales are thick, it would be pustular psoriasis. Before the disease turns to pustular psoriasis, a patient with psoriasis would have thinner and thinner skin, which seems to be swelling and water-filled.
That is a key point. It would be a sign of wrong use medicine on this patient.
The doctor must be using the appropriate medicines that make the disease turn from vulgaris to pustular.