Rob's Story

I was diagnosed with psoriasis at 21. Dovobet was the first topical I was prescribed and it worked, but I found the effects to be very temporary and for anyone who’s had the pleasure of Dovobet you’ll know yourself, it’s a awful stuff. If it wasn’t on me it was everywhere else. At my worst I remember having to shower up to 4 times a day just to get it off and packing spare clothes to take with me anywhere because the thought of it being on my clothes and someone pointing it out was just another thing that drew attention I didn’t want to deal with.

After a couple of years I went back to the Dermatologist and asked to try something else, I was prescribed Enstilar. I actually had a lot of success with Enstilar for many years, it kept things at bay for a lot longer but as before, still very greasy and instead of using it as prescribed this became more of a crutch when my flare ups were really bad just to take the anger out of them.

I wasn’t diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis until I was 27. I was prescribed oral Methotrexate. It helped but it wasn’t fantastic, coming to terms with being “disabled” was hard work and so was taking daily medication just to live a somewhat normal life to try and get the pain and fatigue under control. I was finally diagnosed methotrexate injections about a year ago to manage my arthritis and this was a game changer.

These days my psoriasis is barely visible and in some areas has disappeared completely. for the pain and fatigue, I’ve now been prescribed Amgevita alongside my Methotrexate which has helped that little bit more. A lot of how I manage these days is down to acceptance. I’ve had to adopt the mindset of not letting my condition define the life I want to live and I’d urge anyone else to do the same where possible. Be kind to yourself. Life is a little harder sometimes, there’s definitely some bad days now and again and I do have to plan ahead more than I used to, but I’m still going to do everything I enjoy!