A 37-year-old female came to me with a chief complaint of psoriasis. She literally was covered from head to toe in lesions. She was miserable and felt terrible about herself — so much so that she had lost her libido and desire to be intimate with her husband. She wore long sleeve shirts, turtlenecks and long pants every day to cover up her skin and her embarrassment.

At the first visit, we discussed the skin issue, but I also took a complete health history. What we found was there was more going on than just skin — that was the symptom of what were other long-term chronic issues related to her digestion.

For one thing, she was also constipated, although she didn’t complain about it as it didn’t bother her. She only had a bowel movement every 3rd day or so. Her body was clearly not eliminating toxins regularly through her colon and she had been this way for as long as she could remember.

It was also noted that this most recent flare up had occurred shortly after her mother passed away after a long battle with cancer, and she was struggling with the grief of losing someone who had been one of her best friends.

When I first saw her, she stated her sleep was fine. Three visits later, however, she stated that her sleep was ‘so much better’. She hadn’t realized that her sleep wasn’t actually that good but, when it improved, she was able to see just how great good sleep can be!

We’re often like this… we learn to tolerate less than optimum.

There wasn’t anything else of great significance noted, so we were ready to start implementing recommendations: