Psoriasis, commonly known as牛皮癣, is a stubborn and recurrent red papular scaling skin disease that is relatively common. The course of the disease is slow with a tendency to recur, lingering for a long time, seriously affecting people's lives, studies, and work.
Psoriasis, commonly known as牛皮癣, is a stubborn and recurrent red papular scaling skin disease that is relatively common. The course of the disease is slow with a tendency to recur, lingering for a long time, seriously affecting people's lives, studies, and work. As for its cause, various theories exist.
When blood stagnates in the collaterals, it leads to red macules. When wind-heat and dryness are excessively exuberant, nourishment to the skin is lost, resulting in rash, desquamation, discoloration, and itching. If the disease persists for a long time, yin-blood is internally consumed, fluids are scorched, leading to dry blood that fails to nourish externally. Disharmony of qi and blood, and obstruction of the collaterals, causes the skin to lose nourishment. If blood heat becomes extremely exuberant, toxic pathogenic factors invade from the outside, scorching the skin, both qi and blood can be inflamed, causing stagnant fire to wander and accumulate in the skin, forming red skin.
In traditional Chinese medicine, it is believed that blood heat is the main root cause. Moreover, the forms of heat have multiple factors. It can be due to internal injuries caused by the seven emotions, leading to stagnation of qi, which over time transforms into fire, causing excessive heart fire and toxic heat lurking in the blood. Or it can be due to irregular eating habits, consuming too many pungent and stimulating foods, disrupting the harmony of the spleen and stomach, making qi circulation unsmooth, which over time transforms into heat, further exacerbated by wind-heat toxic evils, leading to the disease.