Dr Bronner's

[TomTom55]

hey there everybody, hope you are having a great start to the weekend.

A little background before I present my query. I am now 27 and have had P since age 16. I have always had it on my scalp and also various parts of my body, however on my body it seems to be sparse and it is worse on my scalp. It has never totally gone. I have been eating much better for the past 6 months and have taken away any refined sugar, dairy, vegetable oil or fried food, white rice and potatoes and red meat (only eat fish now).. I don't smoke and have always exercised but more more these days. This has helped a lot but I do fall down and drink alcohol once every week or 2. 

My point here is that I purchased some Dr Bronner's 1 in 18 natural lotion to wash with in the shower, scalp and body. It is very natural and I have heard so many good things about it for people with P, however it seems to aggravate my plagues by making them dryer and more inflamed, a sort of angry red. I have heard people with skin conditions speak highly of this stuff and the ingredients do seem to be very natural, the only questionable thing may be hydrogen peroxide, but I am not chemist. I do recall though that tea-tree oil had a similar reaction with my P and this stuff contains that, but again others have spoken highly of tea-tree oil.. Could this just be me? Do I need to dilute the solution when using it to wash because I do not want to use soaps that are full of chemicals anymore, something all natural. Can anybody offer their experience with Dr Bronner's and other natural ways to wash? 

Tom

[jiml]

Hi Tom And    to the forum, I hope you will find some useful information here to help you with your psoriasis, as far as I can see the body wash you are trying is just a natural body wash, I'm sure someone will tell you what's in it.

But I personally believe that you won't get rid of your psoriasis with just a washing aid .... And if it really worked you would read a lot more about it...... Here you will notice nobody will try to sell you a treatment, we do though share with others what works for us...... Unfortunately there is no one fits all medication.
Diet may be a better way to try to control the psoriasis there are some good threads on here about what to eat and what to avoid ( but I can't stick to a diet) and have gone down the conventional route of creams , potions and now tablets and have been clear on my tablets ( fumaderm) for 4 years after a lifetime of being plagued with the disease

Here are some threads that may interest you
Truly "Soap free" natural shampoo - recommendations please

The anti-inflamatory food pyramid

Hemp Hearts

There are many good threads in the natural treatments board , feel free to browse, and if you want to get away from psoriasis come and see us in the very active off topic section where there is a chatting thread, members photos, and ask threads where you can learn about the many members through questions if you wish
We are all very friendly and pleased to meet new members and discuss what works and what doesn't .... So don't hold back jump in ... Look forward to hearing more from you soon  

[TomTom55]

Hey and thanks for the reply.

I didn't think it would help to ease up the P that was there but I just wanted to wash with something natural and something that would not flare my skin up, but this stuff seems to have done. I am pretty sure it is the tea-tree oil that in it because for me it seems that I have some kind of reaction to the stuff. I am set on tackling this naturally because it seems to me (and this is my theory of looking into what psoriasis is and how it functions) that the plagues and skin side of it is merely a symptom. Like for example if you have say cancer you will have various symptoms and one could be a terrible cough. You wouldn't try and treat the cough to resolve the cancer. I believe that psoriasis is linked with the gut seeing as the gut has a huge role to play in the immune system and P is an autoimmune disease. 

Anyway what are the tablets you are taking? I am curious to know how the work and what exactly they are. 

Tom

[jiml]

If you read this thread it will explain about fumaderm fully
Fumaderm leaflet

Caroline and others are on a similar tablet called psorinovo, I'm sure she will tell you about it later

I'm out at the moment but the leaflet will give you something to look at and I will let you know more when I get back home  
The basics are that it is dymethylfumerate DMF and if you look on here for threads about DMFYou will find more about what I am taking

[jiml]

Don't be put off by the leaflet though read a bit about my experience here ignore the cancer thing that's past history
I have non of the side effects to speak of now apart from hot flushes .... No big deal Fumaderm and hormone injections

[Caroline]

Hey and thanks for the reply.

I didn't think it would help to ease up the P that was there but I just wanted to wash with something natural and something that would not flare my skin up, but this stuff seems to have done. I am pretty sure it is the tea-tree oil that in it because for me it seems that I have some kind of reaction to the stuff. I am set on tackling this naturally because it seems to me (and this is my theory of looking into what psoriasis is and how it functions) that the plagues and skin side of it is merely a symptom. Like for example if you have say cancer you will have various symptoms and one could be a terrible cough. You wouldn't try and treat the cough to resolve the cancer. I believe that psoriasis is linked with the gut seeing as the gut has a huge role to play in the immune system and P is an autoimmune disease. 

Anyway what are the tablets you are taking? I am curious to know how the work and what exactly they are. 

Tom

Hi Tom,

Welcome to psoriasisclub.
Always nice to meet new people who take the dive into the forum.

Indeed psoriasis is an autoimmune disease. Currently there is still no-one who exactly knows what is the cause and what is exactly wrong. The skin situation is only the outer symptom of a much more complex problem.
What we do know is that there is a genetic component in it and we also starting to suspect that there is a whole range of autoimmune diseases that seem to be interrelated.
If you read my DMF thread, Dimethylfumarates and Psoriasis, then you will see that there is done a lot of practical research by a set of doctors in Germany and in the Netherlands.
From there research it seems that something has gone with the energy cycle of the cells, so they have been aiming on this point. If this knowledge has also reached scientific and pharmaceutical research I don't know. What is shown by the big pharma is that they are aiming, at least with their biologics approach, on the blocking of certain genetic expressions like IL-17 and others, and they have success with that.

The awkward thing that remains, but that I cannot explain, is that the 'old' approach of DMF works against almost all autoimmune diseases, like Crohns, MS and psoriasis (and more).

Do look around on the forum, ask if you want to know something, and just mingle.

Caroline.

[Kat]

Welcome Tom!

I don't have any experience with Dr Bronner's but I understand wanting to find something natural to wash with as I've also noticed anything harsh seems to aggravate things. I too have the most problems with scalp psoriasis and have had a hard time finding things that don't burn (well heck, sometimes just water will make my scalp burned if it's a bit raw in places.)

Since I've had good results using coconut oil, I tend to look for products that contain coconut oil. I also have looked in to making my own soap but not sure I want to deal with lye and the "melt and pour" method is basically just adding fragrance to a premade soap block. It's on my list of things to look in to as if made myself I could experiment with ingredients.

Sorry, I'm getting a bit off topic. I would think you could try to dilute it and see if that helps. It wouldn't hurt to try. I do add tea tree oil to my shampoo, but only a small amount as it seems very strong.