How to treat scalp psoriasis at home? UV light as your best friend and worst enemy

Let’s put it straight from the very beginning – psoriasis is a gene-based illness that affects the skin regeneration process on the cellular level. Modern medical science doesn’t propose a way to get cured of it completely, but there are quite sure methods allowing the diseased to stop the spreading and control the symptoms, almost normalizing the skin in the process. Some of these treatment methods include the use of medicines, but the easiest ones – those you can apply at home, are based on the use of UV light of certain wavelength.

What do we know about Ultra Violet radiation? Yes, it may be harmful – any school kid would tell you about melanoma and other types of skin cancer that you may get during prolonged exposure of bare skin to sunlight or artificial UV light. There’s no doubt in that – such radiation may be dangerous, but in detail – everything is a bit more complicated. Here you can read more about the dangerous side effects of UVB rays https://uvb-lamps.com/blog/uvb-and-skin-cancer-is-dangerous-the-answer-appears-to-be-no/.

UV light is not an exact term when it comes to wavelength – there’s quite a variety, all categorized with Latin letters. In terms of psoriasis treatment, we are most interested in A and B radiation, so called UVA and UVB.

These days, the most popular and effective treatment of scalp psoriasis is called PUVA Phototherapy. It’s actually a combination of UVA radiation and a special drug called psoralen, devised especially for this case. Together these two components give the best results ever, though they’re not always available for home use.

There are also all kinds of alternative treatments, including smearing the psoriatic skin with coal tar, sulfur ointment, Vaseline or other stuff of the same consistence. Would you like to walk around with your head covered with tar? We don’t think so, that’s why when it comes to scalp, nothing beats a good old UVB narrowband lamp.

The good thing about home UV phototherapy is that as long as you follow the manual, you’re your own doctor. No bills, no time wasted in the clinic and on the way. You can sit at home, watch cable TV and treat yourself with a small UV lamp every day. That’s extremely convenient and quite safe indeed, taking into account that modern lamps won’t let you exceed the normal exposure time.

UVB phototherapy is your choice when you need to treat scalp psoriasis. It may take a few months, half a year or a bit more, but the symptoms will go away as long as you don’t stop. In no way should you forget that psoriasis won’t be cured completely, therefore you should continue the treatment for as long as you can. With your own home UVB lamp that’s quite easy.