It started when I was 25. I found the area above my ears, just at the hairline, was always itchy and flaky. Within a few months my scrotum turned red and itchy and flaky. Since there had never been anything wrong with me other than than a flu or two, I immediately went to the doctor. The diagnosis was "probably psoriasis" and I was prescribed hydrocortisone and Dovonex.
2 years later I grew giant, hard skin patches on my knees. My fingernails started detaching. I could live with it, although as a gym rat I needed to make sure my knees were wrapped since doing anything on my knees ripped the skin open.
My fingernails continued to go through phases of detachment and normalcy, and I've lived with the limited skin problems because they were limited. But just in the last year I've grown giant scaly patches up and down my back, and now there are spots growing, expanding across my forehead and nose. I can see how people look at me now, there's something clearly wrong with my face.
I'm terrified. I've always had general fatigue that seemed to match flareups in my skin. While the angriest, spreading psoriasis + fatigue comes in waves, each wave seems worse than the worst that came before. I'm scheduled to see a dermatologist in a few weeks (in Canada, I've had to wait 3 months just be able to have this appointment) but my deepest fear is that I'll be told this is my life now. Even though I know that's the answer, I know there's no cure for psoriasis.
I don't know why I'm typing this, except perhaps that I realize that both the author and I are on the same hunt, and not finding much of anything that can help us feel like we're more than 80% (or 60% or 40%) of the person we were as teenagers. But perhaps there is hope that I'm seeing more articles like this, autoimmune diseases are getting more attention.