Why You Should Resist Scratching Your Psoriasis Patches

I remember when my psoriasis was widespread on my body. It would itch, bleed and cause me a huge nuisance. The temptation to scratch and relieve the annoyance would be high.

But I am here to say it is always best to leave your psoriasis alone. If you can, try and avoid scratching. The best thing to do when you have widespread psoriasis is speak with your medical team and come up with a plan of action for how to deal with it using ointments and other treatments.

The itch never really went away

When I scratched my psoriasis, it never really took away the itch completely. True, I felt better for about 10 seconds, but then the urge to itch would rage on another patch in another part of my body. I did love the feeling when I scratched, though. But I had white flakes falling everywhere and that was unsightly and horrible.

While it takes away the itch temporarily, you risk, as what happened to me, of the patch bleeding or getting on to your clothes. When I scratched my patches, some were so large that blood would taint my nice white T-shirt or ruin the insides of my blue jeans. It meant I would have to go out and basically buy a whole new wardrobe, which is very expensive.

Finding other ways to remove the urge

I understand sometimes you cannot take away the urge to itch, but I’ve learned to find other ways to take it away. Sometimes when the itch was very bad, I would apply moisturizer or creams and rub them into the patch which would help to soothe it. That really did help and take away the itching problem. My patch wouldn’t bleed when I did this, so I could go about my day as normal.

Sometimes you don’t mind the patch bleeding if you relieve the itch, but when you’re out and about, at work or a social event, it can be difficult having blobs of redness dotted about your clothes. And as I say, it would usually mean you would have to take a trip to the shopping mall to buy new ones.

Patches might grow bigger if you scratch

The other thing I find with scratching my patches is new lesions form elsewhere and existing psoriasis gets bigger. I found this a lot when my patches used to cover huge swathes of my body: when I scratch, they would grow bigger and new ones formed nearby. There’s a mental health toll on this too because as the patches grew and new ones formed, I would feel more and more sad and down.

Remember then, try and avoid scratching your psoriasis patches. Yes, you may feel better temporarily because you’re relieving the itch, but don’t forget about the potential for the patch to bleed, and perhaps, as I’m sure was the situation in my case, new patches formed and existing ones grew bigger.

Resist the urge to itch!

There’s no doubting how annoying psoriasis can be. It’s not just the urge to itch, but it can look unsightly and cause you other problems. But remaining steadfast and treating your psoriasis according to your medical team can really help and relieve yourself of the patches themselves rather than just the itch.