Lichen Planus - Treatments, Cures, Aids
Posted , 42 users are following.
I want to start a thread that concentrates on anything that helps - or anything tried that doesn't help.
I've been prescribed Dapsone, Alegra and Advantan - no improvement after 14 days
I've read that Ultra Violet B was completely successful for 70% of patients after 10.9 weeks and I can email that study to anyone interested. Ultra Violet B is provided by the sun but one person on this forum reported getting worse after spending time in the sun.
EM
2 likes, 98 replies
mei74145 ElephantMan
Posted
I had lived in the Indian sub continent for many years and have seen the Indians use fresh tumeric to cleanse their skin and rid themselves of skin diseases with it. I have also read up on the properties of tumeric and its benefits. Tumeric comes in many forms, powder, dried root and fresh root. We grinded the fresh tumeric root and added castor oil to enhance its potency. We applied the paste all over his skin and he sat in the sun for a short while. The lichen spots seems fainter and they have not turned pinkish (inflamed). We have only done it thrice and we are still continuing.
The whole process isn't pleasant. It is messy and everything turmeric touched turns yellow. Turmeric is a spice and can be consumed too.
Has anyone tried turmeric?
ElephantMan mei74145
Posted
Believers think the sample is more powerful the more you dilute it, and they dilute it such that not one single molecule of the active ingredient can be found in the sample. Believers are just drinking the dilutant. Nuff said.
Interesting stuff about turmeric here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turmeric#Folk_medicine_and_traditional_uses
Maybe treatment isn't the best approach. Since this seems to be related to immune system issues, maybe we're better off looking at everything that bolsters the immune system.
I've changed my diet big time, fresh, green, not processed, nothing white (bread, potatoes, rice, pasta) and I'm trying to quit or reduce the smoking and drinking. I haven't seen an improvement yet but it hasn't had enough time yet.
jae21633 ElephantMan
Posted
I have been suffering with this terrible disease since I was about 12 and now I am 31 and it has flared up off and on since then and it started flaring about a year and a half ago and it has not slowed down. My disease is different, I have ashy dermatosis, or erythema dyschromicum perstans, which they think is just a variant of lichen planus. Mine is so bad as it is causing me to become disfigured. It leaves hyperpigmentation all over my body and it is difficult to cover because I am already light brown. The spots are almost a purple blue color. It clears up for years and then returns and I've never been able to identify a trigger. I am under a lot of stress right now but I am always under a lot of stress so it is hard to blame stress on the trigger but it has been very bad lately and my lp is worse than ever. I was on dapsone 50mg for a while because I am anemic and then they upped the dose to 75 to see if I would respond to that an I was not on it long enough to see any improvement because my red blood cell count dropped too low and I had to be taken off. I am not trying metronidazole and hoping it will help. I also am taking vitamin a and omega 3 to perhaps boost my immense system. Have you seen any improvement with clean diet? This disease is ruining my life and my mental health is in poor condition and I hate myself and how I look. I don't even want people to look at me right now it's so bad.
ElephantMan jae21633
Posted
I completely sympathize with that! I found the psychological hit to be completely devastating. I didn't want to leave the house and I definitely didn't want to shake hands with anyone.
>Have you seen any improvement with clean diet?
I'm sure I would if I could only do it - because the logic makes the best sense I've heard. It goes like this: The body has remarkable powers of recovery if only we can stop poisoning it. That recovery includes the immune system, psychological well-being, your energy level, improved sleep and so on. The poisons are drinking, smoking and anything processed. Processed stuff is almost everything (particularly in a US diet) junk food, plastic cheese, the stress in the chicken, the antibiotics in the beef, sugar in almost all drinks, salad dressings, etc.
Clean means fresh fruit and veggies only and the cleaner the better. There's a documentary out there about a guy who ate at McDonald's for a month while being monitored by a doctor. At the end of just 30 days he was suffering from semi-serious liver damage! More evidence is found in a book called The China Study where myths about protein are exploded and the results have been very dramatic, up to and including beating cancer.
There are only so many salads I can eat so I'm a dismal failure at clean living and I'm a complete stranger to self-discipline but the logic and the evidence is the most convincing by far. I did Dapsone and steroids and something to prevent a bad reaction all at the same time and after a 30 day lag-time, it cleared up - but not completely, and I live in fear of the next outbreak. The best clean living diet may be the same for LP as for diabetics and those diets are relatively easy to find on the web.
Give it a shot, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
jae21633 ElephantMan
Posted
I also wondered if me having allergy shots as a young child had anything to do with this. i had them for about 10 years and this issue did not flare up until after they started. I think 5 years is probably the max for allergy shots and my parents didn't know that at the time and no one told them. It makes me wonder if they somehow caused my immune system to go haywire, or if there was some kind of contaminate I got injected with.
With the diet thing, I just don't know how realistic that is for me to do a completely clean diet of fruits and vegetables and little else. Especially, becoming a vegetarian, would be tough. Do you think organic would work in place of completely clean? I guess I am unsure of what clean means, besides no fast food. It seems everything is processed. And my diet hasn't changed in 20 years, so seeing as how I was clear for so long up until about 1 and a half year ago, it is hard for me to believe any type of food triggered it, but honestly, i would not be surprised.
I will say this: I was in the hospital about 7 years ago for a immune related incident, and I was in for 2 weeks. during that time i could not eat anything but broth. Also, during that time, I was an acne sufferer, and when I was in the hospital and a couple of weeks after that, i had 0 acne. This stuff had probably settled down as well. I don't remember having any skin problems until I was out for a good while. So what you are saying makes sense. There was nothing at that time entering my body that was processed. Everything seemed to clear up when I was in the hospital and intaking nothing but fluid. I obviously can't have an all fluid diet, lol, but the clean diet thing may have some weight to it. I am scared to try it because i feel like I will fail, but I guess if I don't try at all, I will never know.
Right now my life is under so much stress, and when this stuff began my stress was really high. So I am going to work on trying to take care of myself and try to minimize that as well. i will keep trying until something works. My mental health is going in a terrible direction and I can't let it keep getting worse.
ElephantMan jae21633
Posted
It's not that the food triggers it or causes it but processed food and all the evils of junk food don't allow the body to recover.
A first world war pilot was diving and spinning out of control towards the ground, he struggled with the controls but the plane wouldn't respond. Then he realized that the plane was built to fly and wants to fly, so he let go of the controls. The plane leveled out and flew perfectly.
In the same way, I think we need to let go of the controls and allow the body straighten out and fly right. The immune system has been known to recover after clean living so you could might find all your immune system disorders recover with one change of lifestyle.
> "it's not deadly"
I was told the same thing, in fact I was warned about liver damage if I stayed on Dapsone so I decided to try another approach. I'm sure my drinking and smoking is screwing up my attempt but I'm not ready to concede. I'll reduce both as much as I can and hopefully quit soon.
>Do you think organic would work in place of completely clean?
It has to be an improvement, that's for sure, but I'm personally a bit cynical about what 'organic' is. It's really a legal definition to attract sales. Mrs Gooches, a chain store selling 'free range' chickens got busted because the chickens were confined until the day they were killed. On that day they were briefly allowed outside! Not exactly free range.
>My mental health is going in a terrible direction
Yep, you can't let this continue to get you down. I think it's important enough to give a clean diet your best shot. Great Lentil soup recipies can be found on the web and you can drink fruit and veggie smoothies. Your broth experience in hospital isn't proof but if that was the cause of everything clearing up, think what might be achieved in 30 or 60 days.
renee77108 mei74145
Posted
dimple77068 jae21633
Posted
jae21633 ElephantMan
Posted
I just want to say thank you for responding. You have been one of the only ones in my life that has ever even given me any hope, and any other thing to think about besides some of these heavy duty medications that are making me ill. It sounds like the disease is persistent for about two years at a time in most people, and then may go away (only to flare up at a different time in some people), and if that is the case, i am working on about 1 year and a half now so maybe it will start to clear up soon.
I am going to start clean eating soon; we have to eat up all of our groceries we just bought in the house first (haha).
you have given me so much to think about and although I am sad that you are a sufferer as well, but it at least gives me some comfort to know that I am not alone in this fight. No one seems to get how detrimental it is. All they know is if it isn't physically harmful, it may look ugly, but it's not big deal. But it's not on their bodies so they don't understand. I was too sick to stay on Dapsone to see if it even worked, which was a devastating blow to me, so I will try this approach. I am to be on the flagyl for a month and then I go back to the dermatologist so he can see how I am doing. I just want to be happy again.
This disease has taken so much from me. And it's like, you don't have time to adjust. Because you don't know how it's going to continue progressing, and if it's going to disfigure you. Then it goes away and you are happy. but you never know when it's going to come back. If it was just here permanently and I just looked this way, I would adjust, and find ways to permanently cover it or try to fix it. But it isn't permanent, it comes and goes, never giving you time to adjust or understand what is happening. It is a very evil disease.
I will clean my diet up. I am going to check in in possibly a month and let you know how it goes. I hope you will still be here. Mine is weird; it seemed to start in my legs and then slowly progress up. It went from my legs to my torso, my arms, and then finally, it is now on my face. I wish i could just rip it off sometimes. It has gotten that bad in the past, and now I have a permanent scar where I tried, and the discoloration is gone in that spot. Such a terrible disease it makes you do crazy things. I didn't realize how much it affected me because it has been gone for so long. Now, here I am again.
Things will get better. They have to.
I am sorry about your hands. It is all over my body, including my hands, so I understand. But mine is different so it's just post inflammatory pigmentation. But it looks like something was there; I just never saw it. So I often wonder if people thing I have some kind of nasty rash.
You never really even think about how often you use your hands until something happens to them. Everyone always sees them, but never notice them unless they have something on them. So I understand your pain ElephantMan, I really do. I just got engaged. I should be so happy and should want to show everyone my ring. But my little hands are so ugly that I don't want to show most people. It is not a raised rash so it doesn't look contagious, but I am still very self conscious. So I get it. I am going to send my well wishes to you and pray for you and send you good karma and everything else that you may need while dealing with this stupid disease. I appreciate you so much.
jae21633 ElephantMan
Posted
I noticed that throughout the years it wasn't flared up I was sedentary. When I started working out, it started flaring. It made me wonder if physical activity made it flare. Physical activity is a type of stress, even it is a good stress. I'm sure there were other things going on at that time as well, but it did make me wonder. I also have Exercise induced urticaria/anaphylaxis. It got really bad throughout that time I had to manage that.
I told the doctors that and they laughed at me. Maybe I am stupid for thinking that the uritcaria triggered it. But it seemed to make sense at the time. I don't know. I haven't worked out and months and it's continued flaring but I think once it's triggered or flares, it doesn't stop until it is done, no matter what you do. It just seemed like something significant to me. I have since changed doctors and the new guy is willing to help try to figure out the mystery with me as he knows how bad is affecting my mental health because I started crying in his office. But I think he is also tired of trying. He at least has seen one other guy in my state that has had it, and that made me feel better. But he told me it was hard to treat, and that the guy is mostly cleared up now, but he could not say if it was because of anything he did. So he has been honest, yet trying to be helpful too. Anywy, thank you for listening.
ElephantMan jae21633
Posted
Thanks, except for the prayer, I'm an atheist! :)
Anaphylaxis is a very serious allergic reaction, I don't know why a doctor would laugh at the suggestion it could be acting as a trigger...
We know they don't know. 'Spontaneous remission' is just their way of saying, I don't know WTF happened.
Good for you! on the clean living decision, I'm still at it and trying to reduce the smoking and drinking so yeah, let's check in again a month. Oh, maybe keep a daily record, one of those little digital recorders will save you typing. Best of luck!
EM
jae21633 ElephantMan
Posted
I don't know why they laughed at it either. I'm no dummy. I am 1 class away from having a biology degree and I also have a bachelor's and a master's degree in another field. So although I'm not a doctor, I am a bit intelligent, and I know my body.
I actually just had a emergency so my health had yet another setback, but I am going to start as soon as I can.
ElephantMan jae21633
Posted
EM
mei74145 ElephantMan
Posted
ElephantMan mei74145
Posted