Often it is difficult to notice the differences between seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis in the early stages of the disease. Both diseases may look similar and difficult to differentiate between them by a common man. A dermatologist can differentiate between them and can advise a suitable treatment.
What is Seborrheic Dermatitis?
Seborrheic (as pronounced ‘seb-o-REE-ik’) Dermatitis or Seborrhea is a sort of a common skin problem that occurs mainly on the scalp. It results in rough patches, excess dandruff, and red skin. It requires treatment to make it go away or sometimes it goes away on its own. Seborrheic Dermatitis often also occurs on the other oily regions of the body, for example, the face, sides of the nose, eyelids, ears, chest, and eyebrows.
What is Psoriasis?
Psoriasis is a sort of skin condition that speeds up the life cycle of skin cells. It results in making the skin cells grow more rapidly and causes excess skin cells to collect on the surface of the skin. These excess skin cells then form red and rough patches on the skin which are itchy and painful.
Psoriasis is a common skin problem that usually goes away on its own. Its main treatment is to put a halt to the excess skin growth that forms so rapidly. Psoriasis repeatedly comes and goes. It has no specific cure to it. But however, we can manage the symptoms that come from it.
Differences in their appearance
Seborrheic Dermatitis and Psoriasis both occur on the scalp region, so this is one of the reasons people confuse them. One of the key differences between them is their appearances. Seborrheic Dermatitis looks yellowish and feels greasy, whereas Psoriasis looks shiny and has a silver color to it.
Differences in their symptoms
It is really crucial to understand the differences in the symptoms between these two skin conditions so that proper treatment can be taken.
Seborrheic Dermatitis Symptoms:
Seborrheic Dermatitis grows mainly on the scalp and also sometimes on the face, nose, ears, and other oily areas. It can cause rough yellow scales or crusty white flakes on the scalp and face area especially. The skin gets red and swells up causing it to burn and itch.
Psoriasis Symptoms:
Psoriasis occurs not just only on the scalp, but also on other areas of the body, for example, elbows and armpits and even nails. Psoriasis causes red patches on the skin. These patches are thick, rough, and are silvery. Skin dries up and gets cracked causing bleeding. A person may feel heavy itching, soreness, or burning. The nails get thick, uneven, or ridged. Joints such as the elbow or the knees get stiff and swollen.
Psoriasis can affect through cycles. Showing up for weeks and months and then coming back again after subsiding. Or even it can just go away completely. Psoriasis has many several types. The types are Plaque Psoriasis, Guttate Psoriasis, Inverse Psoriasis, Pustular Psoriasis, and Erythrodermic Psoriasis.
Plaque psoriasis – Plaque psoriasis can cause red and raised patches to build up with silvery patches. The red lesions (plaques) can be itchy and painful and can occur at any area of the body including the genitals or the soft tissue inside the mouth. This is the most usual kind of Psoriasis.
Guttate psoriasis – It is a very rare sort of psoriasis. It occurs mainly with children or young adults. These are caused by bacterial infections, for example- strep throat. These look like small, dotted, water- drop shaped lesions occurring on the trunks, arms, legs, and scalp. Only about 10 percent of people grow this type of skin condition.
Inverse Psoriasis – Inverse psoriasis mainly grows in the armpits, around the genitals, or under the breasts. This type of psoriasis looks red, silvery, and smooth that harms the skin folds. This kind of condition is triggered mainly because of fungal infections, Also, due to inverse psoriasis; the skin also gets prone to more fungal infections or yeasts.
Pustular Psoriasis – This is another type of uncommon psoriasis that affects the smaller areas, for example, on the hands, the fingertips, or feet. This develops quickly due to pus being gathered surrounded by red skin. Pustular psoriasis comes and goes frequently.
Erythrodermic Psoriasis – This is the rarest and most critical type of psoriasis. Erythrodermic Psoriasis can cover the entire body with red rashes that burn like fire. The rashes can be peeled off and are very itchy as well.
Causes of Seborrheic Dermatitis and Psoriasis
Till date, scientists have still not found the exact reason for Seborrheic Dermatitis. However, scientists know that hormones and genes play a very big role in this.
The causes for Seborrheic Dermatitis are- heavy stress, changes in the hormone, chemical reactions, long-term illness, solvents, excessive soap, strong detergents, dry weather, and unusual behavior of micro-organisms of the skin.
Other diseases such as HIV or AIDS which harm the immune system can act as catalysts to make the symptoms of Seborrheic Dermatitis even worse.
Parkinson’s, a disease that affects the nervous systems may also make conditions grow worse.
The exact reasons for Psoriasis are also still unknown to scientists, but similarly, genes and hormones play roles to influence the situation. In the case of Psoriasis, the skin cells start growing at an excessive rate compared to others who don’t have this skin condition and this causes unusual lesions to grow.
Also, many fungal infections or bacterial infections can also cause these conditions. Researches have also confirmed that heart diseases, diabetes, stress, and depression have relations with Psoriasis and all its types.
Risk Factors
Seborrheic Dermatitis can affect people of any age. It is seen to be more common in men rather than women.
There are some factors that increase the risk of developing Seborrheic Dermatitis. Such as, depression and Parkinson’s disease, weakened immune systems such as cancer or HIV or AIDS, recovering from heart attacks; all these are risk factors of this type of skin condition.
Psoriasis can affect men and women both equally. It is seen to affect more commonly African Americans or white Americans. In the case of Psoriasis, the person is at a greater probability of having growing more diseases. For example, Psoriatic arthritis, Eye disorders, Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases, and many more.
Psoriasis can affect people of any age even though it is seen more often in the age range of 15 to 35. In very uncommon cases, it is seen to affect children or young adults.
Treatments
Treatments are available for both Seborrheic Dermatitis and Psoriasis. But the treatments for them have differences and can also vary from person to person depending on the type.
Treatments for Seborrheic Dermatitis:
A normal case of Seborrheic Dermatitis can be treated using antifungal creams or sometimes medicated shampoo also helps, for example, ketoconazole, coal tar, selenium sulfide. For critical cases, treatment requires corticosteroids. These decrease inflammation.
Though, corticosteroids should not be used for people who had already used it previously for a long time.
In such cases, topical calcineurin inhibitors are used. Oral antifungal medications are used for more severely critical cases of Seborrheic Dermatitis.
Treatments for Psoriasis:
It is generally recommended to use tar products and salicylic acid for treating normal or mild scalp psoriasis.
For more severe Psoriasis treatments, topical treatments are required, such as anthralin, calcipotriene, Talconex, and tazarotene. People usually need to use several treatments in order to figure out which one is the best for them and why.
UV rays are also used many times for Psoriasis treatment. However, UV rays are used in very special circumstances when treating the area around the genitals as the skin there may get damaged by excessive exposure to UV rays.
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