14 Lessons I Learned from My Psoriasis Patients

As a nurse practitioner, I have the valuable privilege of learning and gaining wisdom from my resilient patients.

As a family nurse practitioner, I’ve treated and cared for thousands of people living with psoriasis (PsO). In doing so, I’ve personally experienced emotional, physical, and mental growth. Here are some life lessons people living with PsO have taught me over the years.

Join the free Psoriasis community!

Connect with thousands of members and find support through daily live chats, curated resources, and one-to-one messaging.

Sign up

1. Acceptance

Since PsO affects your appearance, this can lead to feelings of self-consciousness or shame. However, so many people I know living with PsO have learned to accept their condition and realize that their self-worth goes far beyond their physical appearance.

I now tell others living with PsO that there really is so much hope, and self-love and self-acceptance are truly key to managing the hurdles that come with living with PsO. 

2. Self-compassion

Dealing with unpredictable flare-ups of PsO can foster a sense of self-compassion. People living with PsO show themselves grace and compassion, which inspires me every single day.

As a medical professional, this has taught me to practice self-compassion more myself, and to encourage others to be gentle with themselves, even when managing PsO and other chronic conditions gets very hard.

3. Patience

PsO is a lifelong condition. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Managing this condition takes a lot of patience and dedication, and treatment results are not immediate.

Working with people living with PsO has taught me to have more patience and slow down as a healthcare professional. Sometimes, a few extra seconds or even minutes with a patient can make a huge difference. 

4. Resilience and staying adaptive

PsO varies day-to-day and even over time, depending on stress, diet, seasonal weather changes, aging, and countless other factors. The pain, itching, treatments, and changing appearance require frequent adaptation, pivoting from the original plan, and often having to choose plan B.

Being able to adapt to change and pivot is a skill that people living with PsO make look easy. Watching my patients bounce back from flares, bravely trying new medications, and managing the emotional toll this skin condition takes has taught me to be more resilient and adaptable to changes in my own life and in my medical practice.

Sometimes it’s not about being right, but finding the right option for my patients.

5. Resourcefulness

Navigating one’s own healthcare when living with a chronic condition, like PsO, can be very difficult (to say the least). Watching people live with PsO use resources available, stay organized with specialty planners, apps, and bags or boxes of records, and stay in control of their situation is inspiring.

There’s the saying, you can only control what you can control, and people living with PsO make great efforts to live by this motto. I strive to control only what I can control in my medical practice now, too, and am continually inspired by the utilization of resources that people living with PsO participate in.

6. Self-advocacy

Unless you’re living with PsO, PsO can be easily misunderstood, even by many healthcare professionals. People living with PsO often speak up when they have unmet needs, especially in cases where treatments and medications aren’t working. This has helped me in 2 ways:

1. I have a deeper understanding of the very specialized needs of people living with PsO and I make great efforts to listen and respect those needs while offering the best treatments available.
2. I’ve learned to speak up when my needs aren’t met, too. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all. 

7. Empathy, compassion, and perspective on suffering

I’ve developed a deeper sense of empathy, compassion, and a new perspective on suffering since caring for people living with PsO. Living with a visible, painful skin condition can be difficult, and the effect of this is underestimated across the board, especially among healthcare professionals, the media, and regular people.

People living with PsO develop a deeper understanding of what it means to living with a chronic, visible condition, and oftentimes this leads to developing more empathy and compassion towards others as well.

As a medical professional, I’m now more sensitive to other people’s experiences, compassionate, and have a clearer understanding of my patients’ challenges. 

8. Self-care

Prioritizing self-care and having a balance in life is an essential component to managing PsO. People living with PsO inspire me each and every day by prioritizing their health and making diet adjustments, managing stress, and commiting (and re-committing) to a good skin care routine.

This inspires me to take better care of myself, because you only get one body. It’s also taught me to encourage my other patients to prioritize their self-care for better health.

9. Managing expectations and control

Psoriasis is unpredictable, and the treatments aren’t always 100% effective (although that’s the goal) and there’s often a lot of trial and error. People living with PsO have learned to manage their expectations and sometimes surrender control and still live their best life, despite having a chronic skin condition.

As a medical professional, I’ve learned to manage my expectations and I’ve learned that despite my best efforts, everything doesn’t always work out as well as it should.

10. Body positivity and redefining beauty

In recent years, I’ve met dozens of people living with PsO who have a positive body image and are redefining beauty. These people are beautiful inside and out, and don’t let skin plaques slow them down. They have self-confidence and see their value well outside of their looks alone.

This motivates me each and every day to love my own body as it is and redefine beauty. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

11. Finding strength in vulnerability and connection

People living with PsO who share their experiences with others often find strength in their most vulnerable times. By attending support groups, posting on social media, or simply sharing with the people around them day-to-day, they foster deeper connections with the people around them.

Often they find additional strength in their own authenticity, too. This serves as a reminder to me that even in the worst situations, there is strength and hope.

12. Mind-body connection

I’ve seen first-hand the mind-body connection while caring for patients with PsO. Stress, anxiety, and depression often cause skin to flare. Because of this, people living with PsO are more aware of managing their stress and not allowing it to control their body.

This inspires and motivates me to treat the whole patient and reminds me that physical health cannot always be separated from mental and emotional health. I now have a more holistic approach when working with my patients. 

13. Gratitude and mindfulness

Caring for patients living with PsO has forced me to slow down and appreciate the little things. Flare-free moments, days, or even weeks are often seen as gifts, and this reminds me to appreciate the gifts sent to me every day in my life and in my medical practice. 

14. Live for today

People living with any chronic condition have taught me to live for today and stay present in the moment. We may not have a tomorrow or tomorrow may not look anything like today. Because of that, we have to take opportunities that we might not take otherwise.

Bottom line

As a nurse practitioner, I’ve learned a lot about caring for people with PsO. I’m more empathetic, have more self-compassion, and take opportunities I wouldn’t have taken otherwise.

I’m eternally thankful for these lessons, and I hope to pass them on to other medical professionals in time.

Hi Bezzy! Would you like to receive a special series of mini-lessons on reducing inflammation in psoriatic arthritis? There's no cost, and it’s easy to sign up here.