Emotional factors can worsen symptoms

Emotional factors can trigger skin conditions, or they may worsen symptoms. While heredity, bacteria, viruses, hormones, and chemical irritants play a clear role in many skin difficulties, mind and body always do an intricate dance together. If your skin condition does not seem to be improving, it may be time to determine the role that emotions are playing in your acne, psoriasis, rosacea, or whatever malady you are experiencing.

Psychologist Ted A. Grossbart of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass., author of Skin Deep: A Mind/Body Program for Healthy Skin, says you should ask yourself these questions:

* Do your symptoms get worse--or better--with emotional turmoil?

* Is the condition more stubborn, severe, or recurrent than your doctor expects?

* Are usually effective treatments not working?

* Do most treatments work but not for long?

* Is each disappearing symptom quickly replaced by another?

* Do symptoms get better or worse in a very erratic, seemingly nonsensical way?

* Are there striking ups and downs in symptoms corresponding to social environment: vacations, hospitalizations, business trips, or the arrival of relatives or bosses?

* Do people find you strikingly stoic, unruffled, or computer-like in the face of stressful events?

* Is the level of distress and concern about your problem abnormally high or conspicuously absent?

* Is your skin worse in the morning, suggesting that you rub or scratch unintentionally at night?

* Do you have trouble following your health care provider's instructions?

* Do you do things you know will hurt your skin, such as squeezing pimples, picking and scratching, or overexposing yourself to sunlight?

* Does it seem that others notice improvements in your skin before you do? Is it hard for you to acknowledge when your skin has improved?

The more of these questions answered affirmatively, the more likely you can be helped by such psychological tools as relaxation, imaging, focused psychotherapy, biofeedback, and hypnosis. Main stream doctors are more and more receptive as newer research documents not only these techniques' effectiveness, but the specific physiological mechanism that allow them to work. Enhanced blood flow, various immune system components, and stress hormones often are involved in the case of acne, allergies, alopecia, canker sores, eczema, herpes (oral and genital), hives, psoriasis, rosacea, shingles, vitiligo, and warts.

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