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Joe Cotton: Suffering from psoriasis most of my life, I found relief — sharing it with you


Here is how I cured by psoriasis.

I went to several dermatologists throughout my life to get treated for my psoriasis. They would prescribe ointments and various medications to apply to the inflamed skin. The best I used was clobetasol……and drugs.com indicates it is a super-high potency corticosteroid. It would clear up areas of inflammation but without continued use, the inflammation returned. A side effect was that it thinned your skin, and you could see it happening. Also treatment beyond 2 consecutive weeks is not recommended, and the total dosage should not exceed 50 g/week because of the potential for the drug to suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (per drugs.com).

The inflammation on my calves was getting worse and beginning to move up onto the sides of my thighs, and at that point I asked my dermatologist what I could take to get rid of it. She gave me a 30-day supply of Otezla. After reading about the possible side effects, (nausea, vomiting, depression, suicidal thoughts, significant weight loss, etc,) I couldn’t go thru with it.

Joe Cotton

I had been treating myself with herbal remedies that seemed to work to some extent in reducing the inflammation. And I noticed on some occasions that my psoriasis would get worse after eating donuts and cherry Danish rolls from Emerson’s bakery on Saturday mornings.

The Mayo Clinic says that psoriasis is a common long term (chronic) disease with no cure and it said it tends to go thru phases – flaring for a few weeks, then subsiding for awhile, or going into remission.

The two herbal remedies I had been trying were 1. Milk Thistle capsules and 2. Aloe Vera Gel.

Those two remedies were gleaned from an incredible book on herbs, Prescriptions for Herbal Healing by Phyllis A. Balch, CNC. The book enables you to look up herbs, and also physical conditions and diseases.

In Part Two of the book, titled Herbal Prescriptions For Common Health Problems, “Psoriasis” has a list of beneficial herbs to be taken internally. Milk Thistle is one of the listed herbs….and the recommended dosage is “Silymarin gel-caps. Take 120 mg 3 times daily. It indicates that it “Reduces frequency of outbreaks. Maintains liver health.”

“Psoriasis” also has a list of herbs to be applied externally. Aloe Vera Gel is one of the listed herbs. It says it should be used as directed on the label, and that it relieves inflammation and prevents infection.

In Part One of the book-titled Understanding Herbal Healing, the herb Milk Thistle is listed, and under the subtitle Evidence of Benefit-Psoriasis, it states that the reduction of outbreaks “is probably due to increased production of bile, which flushes away toxins associated with the disease.”

The herb Aloe is also listed and under the subtitle Evidence of Benefit-Skin disorders and wrinkles, it said that “A clinical study found that using aloe vera cream three times a day for four weeks “cured” psoriasis inflammation, stopping skin outbreaks for at least a year.” That seemed incredible, if true. It also said that “In a study involving sixty volunteers, daily use of aloe vera gel cleared up psoriasis in over 80 percent of volunteers, compared with 7 percent of those treated with a placebo. That also seemed just as incredible, if true.

So I started taking Milk Thistle and using Aloe Vera Gel.

I began taking 250 mg of Milk Thistle Extract (standardized to contain 80% Silymarin) each day, which I buy from Puritan.com a lot cheaper than I could find elsewhere.

I also began applying Aloe Vera Gel to my legs twice a day (in the morning and before I went to bed). Keep in mind that it is very difficult to find pure Aloe Vera Gel. I searched everywhere online and at the health food store in Florence (used to be called Healthy Alternative at 7570 Burlington Pike, may be Matt’s Natural World, now). They had a product called “Lilly of the desert” stated to be 99% aloe vera, which I bought. I now buy it from Puritan.com at about ½ the price, and you want to be sure to buy the large tube – 8 ounces instead of 4 ounces.

And my psoriasis began getting better.

Then I was lucky enough to read a few articles about the cause of psoriasis online:

At the website www.guthealthplan.com they have information about “Leaky Gut Syndrome” which explains how bad bacteria can cause holes in the 1 cell thick lining of your gut. And these holes allow toxic microbes, bacteria waste, and even tiny food particles to seep into your internal organs, muscles, joints and brain tissue. The article says that “leaky gut syndrome” has been linked to chronic diseases like asthma, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, kidney disease, psoriasis, chronic fatigue syndrome and heart failure. It indicates that you can cure Leaky Gut Syndrome by improving your gut flora by taking a probiotic and a prebiotic. The prebiotic is necessary because it’s what the probiotic feeds on.

At the website www.amymyersmd.com/article/signs-leaky-gut/ it describes Leaky Gut Syndrome and the causes and indicates that psoriasis is one of the symptoms.

It states that there are basically 4 causes of Leaky Gut:

Gluten -(Number #1 Cause)- Gluten causes the gut cells to release zonulin, a protein that can break apart the tight junctions in your intestinal lining. Other inflammatory foods such as dairy or toxic foods like sugar and alcohol are causes as well.

Infections – the most common being Candida overgrowth, internal parasites and SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth.

Toxins – NSAIDS (Motrin and Advil) steroids, antibiotics and acid reducing drugs.
Stress

It is important to remember that Gluten is everywhere in the normal American diet….it is mainly in bread and pasta and cereal. But I just checked my soups and found it in Campbell’s Tomato Soup and their New England Clam Chowder.

Most pasta makers now feature gluten free spaghetti, fettuccine, etc. It tastes about the same as the semolina wheat product. I buy Frozen Three Bakers Whole Grain Bread, and it’s great. I eat unsweetened cheerios and add Sweet & Lo and/or Monk fruit sweetener, and frozen blueberries often for breakfast. Kroger and Freschetta also make “gluten free pizza.” I also had to cut out bakery goods like pies and cheese Danish, or donuts.

So here’s how I did it, in 30 days. . .and all of a sudden it disappeared -just like magic.

• Stopped eating gluten.

• Applied Aloe Gel to the psoriasis twice daily – morning and evening.

• Took a Milk Thistle pill once a day – 250 mg Milk Thistle Extract-Standardized to contain 80% silymarin.

• Took a daily Probiotic capsule (refrigerated type) that contained both a probiotic and a prebiotic.

Footnote: After I cured my psoriasis, I started cheating and eating gluten again in the form of Wendy’s Hamburgers, Frisch’s Big Boys, Skyline Chili 5 Ways, White Castles, and Carrabba’s pasta. And my psoriasis came back with a vengeance, and I went back on my gluten free diet and got rid of it again. Incredible but true.

You owe it to yourself to try this possible cure.

NKY’s Joseph W. Cotton is publisher of the market newsletter, Cotton’s Technically Speaking. He is a graduate of Xavier University, a former bank manager and credit analyst, and a former Fidelity Investments registered investment representative./em>


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2 Comments

  1. Davon says:

    Sixty-Five years, Rheumatoid Arthritis RA. since age Forty. Over the Twenty-Five years that I have had RA, I have, I believe taken most of the drugs created for the disease. All have resulted in normal side effects or contraindications. World Herbs Clinic RA FORMULA is definitely the most effective treatment for me and the only one which works. I only used it for two months. Am currently living Pain-free.

  2. Abigayil Clews says:

    Hi Joe, thanks for this article. Could I ask if you also gave up dairy and alcohol for the 30 days or was it just gluten.

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