Gutted Lianne Campbell MSc

When 21-year-old Anika Najran was diagnosed with psoriasis it was aggressive and unforgiving. Like so many people who have been on Gutted  she tried lots of different treatments over a period of a year and a half that didn’t provide much relief,  this included topical steroid creams, coal tar soaps and shampoos, medicated shampoos, protopics, anti-fungus medication and moisturising wraps. 

In desperation at the state of her skin and determined that she was not going to be on steroid creams and medication for the rest of her life, she started to look for alternatives. Anika tried diet and lifestyle intervention for her skin and was delighted with the results! 
In this episode we chat about the impact of social media and how shared patient experience online helped her gain so much information and insight early on in her diagnosis, and ultimately helped her overcome  severe psoriasis through diet and lifestyle intervention. 
She shares her experience  of natural healing from the inside out on Instagram at - @ani_psofit 

Nutritional Therapist Sophia Delgaizo, 31, was diagnosed with guttate psoriasis when she was 18.  She tried conventional topical steroid creams for her skin for years, however these did not control her psoriasis. 
She discovered that stress, alcohol, gluten and processed foods were the main triggers for her psoriasis, and armed with this knowledge she has managed to keep her psoriasis under control for the past seven years, using diet and lifestyle interventions. 
Having experienced first-hand how nutrition and lifestyle changes can improve health, she decided to retrain as a Nutritional Therapist after years working  for the government in the mental health field.
Sophia is very passionate about skin health and wants to share and support others with skin issues. She is very interested in gut health, as our gut microbiota directly affect our skin (skin-gut axis), and the link between psoriasis and intestinal permeability.

Dualcast with the lovely "Shirley Says" from Bearsden Beauty in Scotland!

We chat about the impact of skin conditions on confidence, self-esteem and mental health and what you can do to make your skin GLOW!

Having both had psoriasis, we chat about the pharmaceutical products we've tried that only offered short-term relief, and why we both now believe diet and lifestyle is critical when it comes to good skin. Top tip - "Eat more plants".

Bearsden Beauty Instagram
Bearsden Beauty Facebook 

Dr Catherine O'Leary is a consultant clinical psychologist specialising in chronic health conditions. For many years she has worked with people who live with chronic illness, from heart failure to cystic fibrosis, and she has learned a lot about how to help people cope with poor health and differences in appearance.
 
Catherine has also had psoriasis herself for 30 years.

In her blog, Coping with Psoriasis, she focuses on the psychological aspects of the condition, covering some interesting topics including psoriasis and sleep, psoriasis and pain and psoriasis and shame. 

Catherine talks about how psoriasis causes physical and emotional pain, but also how we respond to the pain determines how much suffering we will experience. Some ways of reacting to psoriasis-related pain can actually make the situation worse, and in the podcast we chat about what therapies can be employed to reduce suffering.

We also discuss a study shared in her blog, a study of over 900 people with psoriasis that found that shame was one of the most common emotions experienced (Sampogna et al, 2012). Shame is clearly having a serious impact on the lives of people with psoriasis, and participants in the study didn’t seem to get used to having psoriasis: the longer they’d had the condition, the more shame they reported.

"When it comes to psoriasis, what we put in our mouth is more important than what we put on our skin"

Wise words from Mohammed Khan, 22, or as some of you may know him, The Psoriasis Bodybuilder. Mohammed, a 22-year-old bodybuilder living in Toronto, was first diagnosed with plaque psoriasis in October 2017 and it changed his whole life. He has had psoriasis for over 2 years now, and he is keen to share his experience and discuss the things he has tried in order to heal his skin.

After he transformed his life, he wanted to help others do the same. In 2019 he started a YouTube channel about fitness and psoriasis. He also started prepping for his first ever bodybuilding show. He now feels that having psoriasis has been more of an opportunity to grow as an individual and do something different and great with his life. He wants to be the person that people look up to and say "that person helped me change my life for the better".

Excited to have Emma Gould, Nutrition by Emma, on Gutted to kick off 2020. Emma has a degree in Human Biology and Psychology and a Diploma in Nutritional Therapy with the College of Naturopathic Medicine. Emma also has psoriasis.

You may have seen Emma's before and after photos, and her story, on the Psoriasis Association website and social media.

Emma started to develop psoriasis when she had her first child at the age of 31. Three years later, after her second child, and a very stressful house move, her skin was out of control and she was around 50% covered. She was exhausted, stressed, eating bad food and felt she had lost all connection to herself.

She, like many others who have come on Gutted, went down the conventional medicine route first, but something didn’t sit well with her. She applied daily steroid creams to quieten down the symptoms without ever getting to the root cause of the problem.

Like me, and others we've chatted to, she started to research natural therapies to help her body get back into balance. The book “Healing Psoriasis Naturally” by Dr John Pagano was her starting point. She followed the book to the T for 4 months and by the end of that time she had completely cleared her skin. She was 100% clear.  Added bonuses were how much energy she had. She was running 5-10k regularly, sleeping well and bouncing out of bed in the morning.  She realised the power of nutrition and this is what inspired her to do a Diploma in Nutritional Therapy and become a Nutritional Therapist.

If you want to learn more about diet and lifestyle intervention for psoriasis, check out my book, 10 Powerful Steps to Clear Psoriasis on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/10-Powerful-Steps-Clear-Psoriasis-ebook/dp/B07VRYLN4H