I know she’s very good at her job, Dr [dermatology doctor’s name] she’s very, very nice lady and she’s very empathetic and she’s does really know what you’re going through because obviously she’s seen it a lot of times before and she’s very good with trying to help you, specifically for me. For example my swimming, I know I told her when I first went in there that I used to swim and etcetera and she said, My goal is to get you back swimming again, and at the moment I’m already swimming again so she was very happy with stuff like that. And she remembered that cos I went back couple of weeks ago and I told her that I was swimming and she was over the moon that I was swimming again and obviously that made me happy and obviously she felt some sort of happiness from it, I don’t know how much but she did seem rather joyful that I could swim again comfortably and. I don’t know if she does specialise in children but she’s very good with children, adults, everyone.

So my friend worked at Lush and I read in a magazine that somebody with psoriasis had used something called Angels On Bare Skin, I think. And I was like, I read it and it said, It worked wonders for my psoriasis, and I was grasping at straws by this point. So, I was like, Oh, I’ll try that. And I mean it, I got that and at that, that did actually help it. It was just like a natural like body scrub but it meant I could almost itch without causing any damage. So, and you could use it on a daily basis. So that was quite, quite a good one and it, like I say, cos it’s all natural and it has things in to help calm the skin down. It did, I found it helped. And I, when I told the dermatology nurse this, she just rolled her eyes at me and I was like, Well you asked me what I’d used. I said, And I’ve been waiting for months. I said, I was grasping at straws by this point. But I felt like it helped to, I didn’t like to replace my prescribed ones, but it, I added it in. So, like I say, I saw like that it worked and I have to agree I think for symptom relief it did, it did help. Like I say, it was like being able to itch without itching.

Why do you think that the dermatology nurse had that reaction of rolling her eyes?

[Intake of breath] Probably cos she hears it all the time about, Oh I used this and it worked wonders. And I don’t and I never once said I think it was a treatment. I used it as symptom relief and I was fully aware that’s what I was using it for. And I think sometimes people are set in their ways and that in this, in that profession you think it should be prescribed and it should be you should follow, you know, prescribed medicines and things like that. But, she probably just thought oh, you’ve been wasting your money’ or you know, nothing’s gonna get rid of it. But like I say, I never used it to get rid of it. I used it as symptom relief and I told her that and I was like, Well, if it helps it helps. I’m not-, and like and I said to her I said, And at the end of day, even if it was psychosomatic and all in me head, if it gave me symptom relief it gave me symptom relief.

I think as the doctors work with mainly older patients they should be more caring about the younger patients, especially cos they don’t have any knowledge about it. They should like take more time with discussing the treatments with them and making sure they understand. Because when they were giving me the treatments, I didn’t understand anything, but my parents did. They should try and explain in a way that a small child will understand and give the most effective treatments.

Before I was too young to understand like what the doctors were really doing. But now I do understand, so I would like talk to them about it and like ask them questions. And this one that I’m meeting is just generally nicer. She’s a lot more caring as well. I remember the previous doctor would just want to get rid of us and were unpleasant.

Then had another kind of flare up and started using cream for my arm when the other arm popped up. And then, followed by legs and back and sides. So, I was pretty covered. I did get told what percentage I was, but I can’t remember, but it was quite high. It was like, 30% which I think was quite, I can’t remember, exactly. Which is when they decided to put me through for phototherapy. Which was the funniest referral ever, because I sat down at the kind of like doctor and she didn’t even look at me. The dermatologist in the hospital and she went, After what you said, I’ll put you forward for phototherapy. I was like, Okay, like that’s quite-, went and saw the nurse. She referred me straight to the nurse and we got quite a really good nurse-led clinic as well that runs alongside the doctors who kind of like stripped me down [laughs] to everything everywhere, kind of looked at what was going on, asked me all the questions. She went, Well actually, it was a really good judgement by the doctor, because you are like more than eligible. Come with me, we’ll get you started now. So I went from like going to the hospital just to see like what cream I could get to like complete full on like, let’s have treatment three times a week’, sort of thing. Which was quite good.

I think the doctor that didn’t even look at anything, that surprised me. And someone said, Oh, maybe she knows from what you were saying. I was like, Yeah, but I’ve gone and I’ve waited for like an hour after my appointment time, because the clinic’s running late. Like it would have been nice if you’d just even like rolled up my arms, rolled up my legs, had a glance down and been like, You’ve got psoriasis. Like I knew that. But the fact that you’ve looked is just something. The fact that I went next door and the nurse then like went through everything. It was a bit more like reassuring, I was like arr, okay. But the fact the doctor didn’t even look and went, Some more cream and go for light therapy. I was like, okay.

I talk a lot about the forum with my dermatologist who was quite interested to know because he’d never read about them and he said like, I’ve had a few patients who said they they’ve looked at stuff online, but doctors always tend to view looking at things online like it’s a negative thing. Even though I felt like it really, really helped me. And I just think it’s important to be informed. Like it isn’t, it’s not that the dermatologist is ever wrong, but it’s just that there is more than one option, especially with skin conditions where there is so many different medications.

My one dermatologist is the only person I’ve actually mentioned the forums to but it was sort of a team in the room, and they were all kind of quite interested, they were like, Oh yeah you know we’ve never really seen them before, but we’ve heard about them, patients have spoken about them. And they were just kind of baffled as to why I’d really decided on Stelara and not any others first. And I just sort of explained, you know, people’ve had good experiences. I know the issue with it is that there is no long-term research cos it hasn’t been around that long but it’s really similar to other biologics.