October 29 is World Psoriasis Day.  

I try to avoid including my disease in my photos (I wear bangs or makeup). I know sometimes I'm not always successful at hiding it and I get stares or rude comments. I'm sharing this with you (and hoping not to lose any friends/followers) because I want to raise awareness to this awful disease. 

It's not contagious. It's not just a "cute heart shaped patch". I don't have cancer on my face. It's not because of poor hygiene. It does cause pain and humiliation. It does cause poor self esteem. It does cost thousands of dollars for treatments (the only treatment that worked for me was a chemotherapy pill -- that caused stomach problems so I had to stop). It does cause other health issues (right now I am dealing with blood pressure issues which was explained to me as a side effect of my disease). Most of the treatments that I have encountered have the side effect of skin cancer - I mean it's probably rare that will happen but treating one disease only to end up with cancer seems pretty harsh. It does attack more than one area and usually pretty widespread which makes it difficult to treat topically. 

Those are just a few things I've experienced in the three years that I've had this awful disease. 

I hope I didn't scare you away -- I assure you I am not dressing up as a "walker" for Halloween (sorry joking helps me cope with the self-esteem part of the disease!).