Seasonal Psoriasis Flare-Ups: How Weather Changes Affect Your Skin

 To prevent infection or internal harm from external forces, your skin, the largest organ in your body, works tirelessly to keep you healthy. The outermost layer, the stratum corneum, is also known as the skin barrier and acts like a brick wall with tough skin cells called corneocytes bound by lipids to fortify your body’s defenses.

Skin conditions often affect this layer, including different forms of psoriasis, whose outbreaks can occur for several reasons, including changes in the weather. To better understand this problem, let’s further explore psoriasis, examining the connection to the seasons and learning how to avoid flare-ups.

Clarkston and Pullman, Washington, area residents struggling with psoriasis or other skin problems can get relief from Drs. Walter Williams, Lindsey Goddard, and the experienced medical staff at Dermatology & Skin Cancer Center.

Psoriasis basics

This autoimmune skin illness inflames the skin, leading to plaques, thick scaly areas that appear and vanish without warning, and is incurable. Around 80% of people have the plaque form of psoriasis, but this illness also comes in various forms, including:

• Inverse: formation of plaque in the folds of your skin

• Guttate: occurrence in the throat caused by a streptococcal infection

• Pustular: pus-filled bumps that form on the plaques

• Erythrodermic: a severe form that covers large parts of your body, causing widespread discoloration and shedding

• Nail: leads to changes, pitting, and discoloration in your finger and toenails

• Sebopsoriasis: bumps and plaques on your face and scalp with greasy yellow scales

Though psoriasis can occur on any part of your body, it most often affects your elbows, knees, inside your mouth, scalp, fingernails, toenails, lower back, genitals, palms, and feet.

How weather affects flare-ups

The term seasonal psoriasis is a bit misleading; it isn’t separate from the chronic skin condition people deal with; it’s merely a description of symptom frequency due to certain changes in the climate. This is how those changes often manifest in different seasons throughout the year:

Spring

A time of the year when symptoms aren’t as severe as they can be in, say, fall or winter, but UV overexposure, bug bites, and dry skin can all lead to outbreaks in this season.

Summer

Another mild season for outbreaks; however, UV overexposure and bug bites are prevalent, in addition to an increased risk of sunburn.

Fall

When the weather starts to cool off, seasonal issues with upper respiratory illnesses, along with dry indoor air, dry air from heating, and even itchy sweaters, can all lead to increased flare-ups.

Winter

Combine the drier air from the fall and indoor heating with the mood changes common in winter and decreased sunlight, and there is a greater chance of psoriasis flares.

Prevention and management tips

The steps for managing psoriasis vary by season, with a focus on protecting skin from the sun in spring and summer as well as staying moisturized and using sunscreen. Skin protection in the fall includes short, warm baths; a thick layer of moisturizer that forms a skin barrier; wearing soft, natural fabrics; and getting your seasonal vaccinations, like the flu shot.

In the winter, be sure to wear a base layer of clothing underneath wool or other fabrics that itch, use creams like petroleum jelly to retain skin moisture, and if you’re dealing with the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, get help as soon as possible.

How psoriasis and the seasons affect you changes over the year, but with these tips, you can try to reduce its impact on your life. Schedule an appointment with Drs. Williams, Goddard, and the team at Dermatology & Skin Cancer Center today to treat psoriasis any time of the year.