What Causes Your Psoriasis To Flare?

I was reading an article over at Everyday Health about different things that may cause your psoriasis to flare or what may trigger it to begin with. It got me thinking about what sets mine off.

I remember as a kid a scraped knee from falling over while roller skating or even falling off my bike could cause a new spot to appear. Definitely a trigger if I ever knew of one & that dreaded Koebner Effect (also known as Koebner Phenomenon). Koebner is the guy who put two & two together and worked out that cuts & scrapes may cause psoriasis to appear. How nice of him to name it :P

Colder weather makes me flare. I'm not sure if its the lack of sunshine on the skin, the extra moisture in the air or the fact that we stay indoors with the heater on that cause it. I know that there are a lot of people, just like me, who have major (or even minor) flares during the winter months. Perhaps we all need some UVB during the colder weather. I know that helps me. (Yeah I know I said I wasn't using it at the moment)

Stress is definitely a trigger. There's so much going on at my place with various health issues or behavioural issues with the kids that there really isn't much of a chance that my stress levels will ever ease up. Of course it improves during the day when they are at school but the phone calls home don't help & then of course stress levels increase once school gets out. What a lovely rollercoaster ride that can be. Thank goodness for the happy pills (anti-depressants) I get from the doctor.

Now that I mentioned stress its also a catch 22 situation. You have a flare up and you get more stressed that you are flaring and that your skin is at its absolute worse. Some days you just can't seem to win. Please supply me with MORE happy pills on those days or Chocolate!! And lots of it!!

They say smoking & alcohol triggers flares. Considering I gave up smoking years ago & I never really drank I don't see that as a problem for me. The fact that I still get these blasted flares doesn't seem to matter to my psoriasis one bit that I no longer use either of these things.

Some medications cause flares also. I read that some blood pressure meds (beta blockers) can cause flares. Happy pills probably do too but hey they keep you happy so maybe they make you care less about flares. Who knows!

Also getting sick such as a head cold, sore throat or the flu may also be triggers for flares. So the best bet is to try and stay as healthy as you possibly can. Not an easy feat for lots of people but as long as you do the best you can that's all that matters.