Tomáš Váňa (11 years):
I lost my hair due to psoriasis

AHA (November 11, 2008)

Tomáš Váňa (11 years) from Ústí nad Labem is a nice teenager who gets a lot of attention from girls in his class. However, about a year ago all the children at his school and even adults on the street detested him. He suffered from a severe form of psoriasis. He had flaky skin spots all over his chest, arms and legs – but mainly on his face and in his scalp. He had even lost his hair on some places! No medicine helped him. What at the end helped was a treatment that doctors refuse and insurance companies do not cover...

"Tomáš started to have psoriasis at the age of 5, when he first had spots in his scalp," describes his mother Markéta. His dermatologist recommended treatment with special light at first. We would go there for 30 minutes a day. After nine months, instead of having five small spots in his scalp, he had one huge spot all over his head. It was five millimeters thick and he had no hair growing from this dry skin," says Markéta. Doctors started to prescribe various types of medicine – corticoids, ointments and creams with tar, special oils. Nothing worked. They even tried cannabis creams, salt chambers, Dead Sea mud – no positive results whatsoever.

At the end of last year Tom became a teenager and psoriasis spread over his entire body. Nothing could make it stop and he did not want to be going to school. He has psoriasis in his face, in his eyebrows "says Markéta, who spent hours on the internet searching for help when even doctors could not help any more.

"Then one day I found Dr. Michaels products and asked for samples. I received a response that they did not provide samples, but I could sign up to participate in a clinical study in Motol Hospital in Prague,” continues Markéta.

In Motol, they did a thorough check-up on Tomáš and gave him two sets of products to try. "We could not believe it, he was on treatment for 7 years before and nothing ever helped. Now in five weeks psoriasis from his scalp was gone," says Markéta.

Medicine exists – Insurance companies do not cover it...

What has helped Tom is cosmetics based on natural elements. So far it has been refused by many doctors as being non-effective. After having conducted tests in five Medical Faculty hospitals in the Czech Republic and also in Austria, Hungary and Russia, doctors started to accept these products, but insurance companies still don’t...

"The effectiveness of treatment in clinical tests was over 82%. The results are better with chronic forms of psoriasis, it is not so suitable for acute forms," describes Prof. MUDr. Jana Hercogová from Medical Faculty Hospital Na Bulovce in Praque.

Dermatologist of Tomáš shares the same opinion: " Our patients have had psoriasis for in between six months up to six years. Except for one patient we could notice significant improvement much earlier than with other types of treatment," describes MUDr. Štěpánka Čapková from Medical Faculty Hospital Na Bulovce in Praque.

Although this treatment is, according to doctors, much safer and more effective than other types of treatment, it is not covered by insurance companies. "Its biggest advantage is that it does not contain corticosteroids," notes Prof. MUDr. František Novotný from Prague Dermatology Center. Corticosteroids make your skin thinner, they slow down the process of healing the skin infections and in case you suddenly discontinue the treatment, psoriasis can get even worse. Plus the effectiveness of such treatment is only about 50%, according to Prof. Hercogová.

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