Look Better and Feel Better With Psoriatic Arthritis
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Even if you’re great at following all the strategies to manage psoriatic arthritis, dealing with stiff, swollen, and painful joints or skin lesions can be more than a medical challenge. You likely could use a self-esteem boost, too, especially if you’re emotionally worn out from feeling self-conscious about your condition. Try these tips to help your beauty shine through despite the changes you’re experiencing in your skin and joints.
1. Dress With Flair to Cover Psoriasis Plaques
Nowhere is it written that you can’t be stylish when dressing to deflect attention from psoriasis plaques or swollen joints. Just follow these tips.
- Use clothing to your best advantage by wearing pants, maxi skirts, and long sleeves to conceal plaques and affected joints. In warmer weather, opt for three-quarter-length sleeves and capri-length pants. A loose fit is best.
- Avoid scratchy and heavy fabrics that might irritate your skin or inflamed joints. If it’s cold, try dressing in layers rather than wearing a heavy sweater.
- Whenever possible, opt for lightweight, breathable fabrics such as cotton or linen.
- Experiment with accessories, such as designer gloves and scarves.
- If you have scalp psoriasis, wear light-colored clothing to camouflage dandruff flakes that might fall onto your shoulders.
RELATED: How Clothing Can Affect Your Psoriasis
2. Put Your Best Face Forward With the Right Makeup
When a psoriasis outbreak strikes your face, try a makeup makeover with these tips to minimize redness.
- Apply a skin primer after your moisturizer. A primer isn’t absorbed into your skin — instead, it creates a better surface for foundation, helping it go on more smoothly and evenly.
- To tone down redness even more, as a next step, dab on concealer with a makeup brush wherever you need it.
- As a finishing touch, use brushed-on pressed powder to set your makeup and banish shine.
You can also try “camouflage” cosmetics, which are available at many cosmetic counters and pharmacies. These products are color-corrective cosmetics that are noncomedogenic (meaning they don’t block pores), hypoallergenic (less likely to cause an allergic reaction), and often contain sunscreen. Ask your doctor to help you select the safest, most effective brands.
3. Keep Your Fingernails Looking Their Best
- Keep your nails short. This helps prevent them from lifting off your nail bed. Avoid applying fake nails for the same reason.
- Lightly buff your nails to minimize the appearance of pitting, but go easy, because some buffers can be very abrasive.
- Don’t bite or pick at your nails or the surrounding skin. This can injure your skin or cause an infection, both of which can worsen psoriasis.
- Use multiple layers of nail polish. Because some of the chemicals in nail polish can be irritating, ask your doctor for a list of ingredients to avoid and recommendations on the best way to remove polish without irritation.
- Apply thick creams or ointments frequently to keep your hands and nails moisturized.
RELATED: How Psoriatic Arthritis Can Damage Your Nails — and What to Do About It
4. Step It Up With the Right Shoes
If you experience a psoriatic arthritis flare with swollen toe joints, you don’t have to sacrifice style for comfort. It’s possible to find a balance between footwear that looks good and won’t confine your feet and worsen your symptoms. Check out sites like Barking Dog Shoes for curated reviews and suggestions for shoes that can work for “problem feet.”
5. Nosh on Healthy Foods
In addition to helping you maintain a healthy weight to ease psoriatic arthritis symptoms, good dietary habits will reduce other health risks associated with the condition, such as diabetes and heart disease. Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, and lean protein. Also, smoking and alcohol can worsen psoriatic arthritis — another reason to skip both.
6. Get Active for a Variety of Mind and Body Benefits
For some great mind-body soothing and stretching, try yoga or tai chi. To work in a little cardio without stressing swollen joints, head to the pool for swimming or water workouts, or use a recumbent bike or an elliptical machine to minimize stress on your joints.
7. Find Ways to Stress Less
Everybody gets stressed — whether it’s at work or at home. And stress can lead to certain behaviors that can aggravate your psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, such as indulging in trigger foods and smoking cigarettes. It can be a spiral, with stress leading to psoriatic arthritis symptom flares and worsening symptoms leading to more stress.
But you can take steps to break the cycle and lower your stress response. Practice mindfulness, meditation, or deep breathing to manage stress, as well as low-impact exercise such as yoga.
Fewer flares may just put a smile on your face — and that’s often the best beauty tip there is.
8. Your Mood Matters
Because beauty can be as much about how you feel as how you look, it’s important to pay attention to your emotional health. Research suggests that people who are happy (as defined by certain measures of subjective well-being) are healthier. The benefits of happiness include improved heart health, better immune functioning, pain reduction, and lower levels of stress and anxiety. How can you boost your happiness? Prioritize relationships and experiences you enjoy over material things, and cultivate gratitude. Find ways to spend time with people you like and who make you laugh.
9. Sleep Well
It’s important to get your PsA symptoms under control so they’re not disrupting a restful night. This may mean talking with your doctor about your meds. You also want to establish good sleep habits: Stick to a schedule, avoid bright lights before bed, remove distractions (like electronic devices) from your bedroom, and exercise regularly. If you’re still struggling with your sleep, it could be time to see a sleep specialist.
10. Manage Your Weight to Take Pressure Off Your Joints
Many people with psoriatic arthritis also battle overweight or obesity, says Christopher Ritchlin, MD, MPH, a professor and chief of the division of allergy, immunology, and rheumatology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. “Obesity really takes a toll on your joints, so maintain a weight as close to ideal as possible,” he says.
Additional reporting by Madeline Vann, MPH.
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