Musings on Healthcare - by theahura - 12 Grams of Carbon
This is a bit more of a personal article than the ones I usually write. It's one that I have been thinking about writing on and off for the better part of three years. And of course, given everything that's been happening recently, healthcare is again at the top of mind. Honestly, I debated whether or not it made sense to post given that it may come across as a bit too political in the current moment. Still, timeliness is maybe a virtue of its own, and self censorship to avoid the appearance of taking sides is for cowards, and I have a small audience of mostly friends anyway. Also I'm jetlagged from coming back from a wedding in Thailand, so what else am I going to do?
Approximately 3% of the global population have a disease called psoriasis. You almost definitely know someone with the disease. A bunch of celebrities have it — Kim Kardashian is maybe the most famous, but the list also includes golfer Phil Mickelson and musician Art Garfunkle. Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease, generally chronic. Its primary symptom is the formation of inflamed, itchy, scaly patches of skin. We don't really know what causes it. It seems to be somewhat genetic, and seems to have some amount of co-occurrence with other auto-immune diseases like allergies.
Most people who have psoriasis have a small patch of it, commonly on joints like elbows or knees. Easily treated by topical steroids. About a quarter have 'severe' psoriasis, where patches cover > 10% of skin 1 .
