Hi Ed, I'm Richard, I have had P for over 18 years and have used every possible treatment (almost) from steroids to visiting a shaman in the Amazon Jungle. All in search of some relief. Among those treatments, I visited an acupuncturist who put a lot of emphasis on my lungs and liver. He stated that I should quit smoking and taught me an acupressure technique to help my lungs and liver function better. Well, I quit smoking and applied pressure to the points for about three weeks and my P reduced by about 50%. However, I went back to the bad habit and guess what? P’s returned strong as ever.

I can assure you that smoking is no good for P.

Furthermore, this is my first time using the Internet to find P information and what a surprise, here I am writing about it. I see that the way you approach our common curse is going to help me cope with my everyday ordeal. Yours, -Richard B.

PS. Spanish is my first language, so I apologize for any errors in my English.

*****

Ed’s Response: You are the first visitor to report having visited shamans in the Amazon in search of relief from P. It pleases me to realize a search here on the word "shaman" will no longer draw a blank! Of course, you’re talking about real life shamans. I’ve dreamed of the word here being associated with some of the derms whose appalling inadequacy unfortunately fills a substantial amount of our archived correspondence. No matter, having reference to real shamans is cool too.

What did the shaman do, anyway?

I agree with your assertion, that smoking is no good for P. But I agree because smoking is no good for anything. When I stopped smoking my P flaked on, unfazed.

I’m amazed that you experienced such good results in three weeks from an acupressure regimen. I’ve not tried acupressure, but I have tried acupuncture followed by Chinese herbal medicine. My results (profoundly unremarkable) are recorded in Flake: Confessions of a Psoriatic and are reproduced as an excerpt here.

I think you are a luckier man than me, Richard. And there’s absolutely no need to apologize for your English. -Ed

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