Sonny's Story

For the first of our stories this Psoriasis Awareness Week, we hear from 16-year-old Sonny, who developed guttate psoriasis at 15. His psoriasis quickly spread, causing severe itching, pain and affecting his confidence. Now, he is sharing his story to remind others that there is hope and to never give up.

My names Sonny, I just turned 15 when my psoriasis started following a viral infection. at first it started as a little red dot on my forearm and I didn’t even take much notice to it, thinking it was a bug bite or something. but over the following weeks, it just spread into coin sized patches first up my arms, then to my legs, face, torso and scalp.

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After going for a doctors appointment I was told it was guttate psoriasis and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it for the rest of my life except use steroid creams. Over the months it worsened due to improper treatment from doctors putting me on loads of different creams and not being able to get a dermatologist appointment. There was times where I'd wake up itching and just cry scratching my skin until it bled and the only thing I could do was put a wet towel on it and force myself to lie still, not being able to turn or do anything for that matter because my skin would rip open and form cracks.

I was even once put it hospital due to this when I had a severe itchiness attack which didn't stop for 24+ hours, eventually getting a dermatologist appointment where they basically told me the same thing as doctors and I thought “is this really what the rest of my life is gonna be?” So I took matters into my own hands, removing all stress related things from my life and changing my diet which helped MASSIVELY.

Over the course of a few months it started to clear up especially my front torso which was just a massive block of red. It annoyed me when this happened too because I was told by Dermatologists that diet is a placebo effect and so is stress and that it’s a skin issue when it’s really not, It’s down to your internal body and how you’re treating it. It is for me anyway. I know others are different.

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I do still struggle with it and year and a half later but it is very more controlled and I'm waiting on UV treatment soon which hopefully will be the answer for me as the natural sun does also massively help mine go away. I plan on moving completely off the steroid creams as for the past few months I've been using weaker and weaker versions so hopefully that will show results.

But everybody out there who is struggling with psoriasis PLEASE know it’s not the end of the world, I know it destroys confidence and can lead to depression, I've experienced it first hand. but recovery is always possible you just got to keep fighting and don’t give up on yourself. :)