Mohammed Khan, a 22-year old personal trainer from Toronto, Canada, has suffered from all over body psorisis for over four years and has tried everything, including steroid injetions, to conquor it without much success until he discovered a skin serum made from Oregon Grape Root.
“I first got psoriasis back in October of 2017 and I think it was triggered because I was overweight, eating a lot of junk food and was very stressed about being in debt.
When I started to see this strange patch forming on one of my hands I immediately went to the doctor, who prescribed a steroid cream and told me that it would “thin” my skin, but I didn’t care at the time because I wanted the red spots on my skin to go away fast.
When more spots started appearing over the coming days I went back to the doctor and she gave me some pills (do not remember the names) and I took those along with still applying the steroid cream.'
The quickly worsening state of Mohamed's skin meant he was soon tranferred to a dermatologist. By this time he had plaques breaking out all over his body.The dermatologist took one look at his skin and said he was more than 80% covered.
"I felt really depressed as I was so young and I was told the psoriasis would be with me for the rest of my life."
The dermatologist put him on steroid injections. On a bi-weekly basis, he was instructed to visit the clinic for injections and had to remain there for an hour to see if his skin would react. After just two rounds of injections Mohamed decided to quit after doing some research on those steroid injections and the side effects they had, an increased risk of cancer was the one of the most worrying ones.
After stopping all medications, Mohamed's psoriasis got worse and worse, and it got to the point where he was desperate for some answers.
That as the point was when the psoriasis spread to Mohamed's genital area.
'Having penis psoriasis made me realise that no doctor was going to help quickly enough so I would have to help myself.'
'I felt totally socially isolated and alone because of my skin. I was living in shared student accommodation and my psoriasis made a lot of mess due to the flakes falling everywhere. Some of the students got bothered by this mess and told me very politely to clean it up, but it still made me feel bad.
At the beginning of 2018 I started experimenting with different diets to both help my skin and try and lose weight as I had read this might help my skin. I moved to a vegan diet and joined a gym but people at the gym would walk away from me when they saw my skin.
'I felt so depressed and sometimes I did think about suicide. Like most psoriasis sufferers as always be asking the question; why me? I started having dreams about falling off a building which scared me a lot at the time.'
By the start of 2019 I had lost a lot of weight and through various tweaks to my diet and I was transforming my body through a dedicated exercise and weight-lifting. My skin had started to improve but it was still very visible and still covering a lot of my body.
I was doing a lot of on-line research on diet and fitness and to find support groups and blogs for psoriasis sufferers and it was on one of these that I found out about Oregon Serum at the end of 2019. There were a lot of convincing independent reports from people with psoriasis saying how effective it was and as it contained no steroids, I felt it was worth trying.
Just a week into using the Oregon Serum, I noticed my psoriasis flakes had gone down and scaly patches felt softer and not so rough, especially the ones on my knees and elbows.
I saw the most dramatic improvements in my facial psoriasis, which after a month had significantly decreased.
I was getting along really well when COVID 19 broke out and everything changed.
As soon as lockdown began my psoriasis started to itch, I’m guessing from the stress of losing my job. I’m currently relying on the government help financially until I can get my job back. But my skin was also suffering from not being able to go outside to exercise to get vitamin D from the sunlight, which is vital for helping to control psoriasis.
But instead of panicking and getting depressed, I decided to really concentrate on managing my skin as I had more time to focus on it as I wasn’t working. I increased my use of Oregon Intensive Serum to 2-3 times daily and cut gluten from my diet completely.
The greatest dent to my skin management routine was not being able to get to the gym. I was overweight for much of my late teens and so I know how easy it is for me to put weight back on if I don’t exercise regularly. Losing weight really helped control my psoriasis. I was terrified of slipping back into my old ways of comfort eating and getting lethargic.
I ordered some basic home gym equipment and became my very own personal trainer, devising a strict daily workout time which I just do not matter how I feel and I’ve been experimenting with my new exercises every week.
I’ve been uploading two videos every week on my YouTube Channel instead of one and have started a new series on Instagram (psoriasis_bodybuilder) where I go live with other people who have psoriasis and we do interviews and talk about our psoriasis journeys, which has been a really positive experience.
Oregon Intensive Serum was a real saviour during lockdown and has helped compensate for the lack of vitamin D from the sun and my normal exercise outdoors.
Switching to a plant based diet and weight committing to a serious exercise programme has fundamentally improved my psoriasis from the inside by reducing my excess weight and strengthening my body’s resilience to fight the condition and the Oregon serum applied externally has significantly helped reduce my psoriasis on the outside.
I’m confident that I may emerge from lockdown with better skin than before I entered it, which I hope is something that will give hope and inspiration to others coping with psoriasis during lockdown.”
