Overview

Please see conventional, complimentary and alternative medical treatments for important background information regarding the different types of medical treatments discussed on this page. Naturopathic, Complimentary and Alternative treatments that may be considered include:

Etiology

Some authors have noted that dry skin and psoriasis are common in hypothyroid conditions, and respond well (75%) to treatment of the underlying hypothyroid condition [Barnes], [Starr2005, pg 108].

Differential Diagnosis

  • Basal body temperature below 97.8 degrees F, elevated TSH, or depressed T3 (suggests hypothyroidism).

Treatment

Naturopathic, Complimentary and Alternative Treatments

Immune System Balancing

[McCulley2018, pp 28, 33, 35, 62, 89] reports that psoriasis may be a TH1- and TH17-dominant, localized, autoimmune disorder, and proposes an approach to treating this disease, which should be supervised by a properly trained medical professional. Dr. Weyrich has considerable interest in this topic, but has not treated any cases of psoriasis with Immune System Balancing.

Please see What is Immune System Balancing? for more information.

Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)

According to the Low Dose Naltrexone home page [LDN], LDN has been seen to benefit psoriasis, which is considered to be an autoimmune disease. Dr. Weyrich has been trained in the use of Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN). However, Dr. Weyrich has not treated any cases of Psoriasis with LDN.

Please see What is Low Dose Naltrexone? for more information.

Hypotheses

It has been pointed out that hypothyroidism can reduce blood flow to the skin by as much as 80%. This may contribute to a variety of skin conditions [Starr2005, pg 108].

References