In terms of activities it’s like, like the gym and things like that, like it’s kind of the same as like social-, socialising would be, so like I just wouldn’t want to-, when it was bad I just wouldn’t want to go out. So that would include like doing any kind of activities. I’d like, like if I was gonna exercise, even though I hardly do, it would be like by myself. I’d rather kind of be by myself. And I could see, I could feel myself wanting to cancel things all the time. So I’d kind of like work myself up and be like, ok I’m gonna go to this’ and be really confident about it on the day before and then on the day just be like I’m not going. Anyway my skin’s not, I’d, my skin looks awful, I’m not going. I don’t have the energy to spend three hours trying to make it look fine, to put make-up on everything, to find something to wear. Like you know, I would just back out all the time. And I could feel people kind of be disappointed and because I didn’t want to tell them what was happening, you know, I just sort of just looked like I was kind of like flaking on everything. So yeah, it did, it did affect me badly. It’s been better since I’ve kind of been honest about it. And I weirdly felt like I could only be honest about it when it was kind of better, so that it looked like it was sort of in the past. Like I sort of, I didn’t wanna show people it at it’s worse and sort of have that look of like shock and disgust. So when it got a bit better, then I would talk about it and be like, Oh I’m on medication because my psoriasis used to be really bad and, you know, I felt more confident talking about it when it was behind me. It’s really hard when it’s at it’s worse to just be open about it and just be like, This is what I have. Because like you, you just hate it so much, you can’t imagine that anyone else would feel any differently to the way you do. And it’s hard to see it from an outside perspective. And I think, you know, everyone in my life has been like absolutely like great with it, and like interested in like talking about it, and the medications. And then you tend to find out lots of people have other problems and skin conditions and things that they’re dealing with that you just sort of didn’t realise. And I have been really grateful that it hasn’t been on my face, cos I look at a lot of my friends who like suffer from acne and I do feel like, you know, at least I could like hide it. It’s so much so much more difficult to hide you know the area that everybody sees first. And you like can try so hard to hide that, but it’s much more difficult.

So I was playing quite a lot of rugby before it happened, and that was a big no [laugh] because obviously that would-, that would make it really, really sore. So I couldn’t do any of that. I did quite a lot of swimming, because I sort of checked with the GP and apparently I wasn’t gonna to put anything in the water that was going to be bad for anyone else. So I did quite a lot of swimming, which was again really soothing. So it meant that I could go and do something to take me mind off it and get some exercise without it being sore. And I was but initially a bit worried about the chlorine irritating it, but the chlorine seemed to be alright. And again I just made sure I had some emollient on and I was okay. But yeah, it meant that I couldn’t play rugby at all. And I had to be careful with sort of pretty much everything else, just to try and sort of stop aggravating it as much as possible.

If I was given the opportunity I’d like to be, play badminton for England or something but I kind of gave up on that because I would have to spend all day, I don’t know, six hours on my feet training and I just wouldn’t be able to do it just, it just I’m not sure they’d cope. I mean just doing a day of sort can put so much pressure on them like do a cricket tournament or something and the next day they’d barely be able to walk so.

And were there other forms of sport that you found easier to do or enjoyable?

I always struggled with football because I didn’t have any nails so kicking the ball when taking a shot or something I found, it found it quite difficult and very painful so eventually I did give that up. cricket is easier I think than badminton because its, you get a rest period so if you’re fielding the ball isn’t always at you and you’re bowling I mean if a bowl is speed a fast bowl then it’s more difficult but a spin ball’s not too bad because I’m not putting so much pressure on my feet. Yeh it was just that, that rest period made it easier although I can’t, I do struggle to stand still for a long period of time.

Right.

Just my feet ache and then I start, I kind of start walking about and they still ache and I just get fidgety and get itchy and, you know something’s happening and they’re getting bad and you can’t do anything about it.

Can you remember when that sort of impact on self-confidence started for you?

Probably when I started secondary school. Although my friends were they, they knew, cos they, they’d known me for a while. They didn’t really mind. Cos they just looked past it. But I sort of never liked to get changed in front of them for PE and the-, I don’t think the PE teachers quite understood so they were just like, Yeah, everyone’s gotta get changed in one place. And especially when I went swimming in primary school and secondary school, they- I didn’t feel like I wanted to do it. So often I would write notes saying, My mum said that I can’t do it today. And try and get out of it that way.

Did that work or-?

Yeah, most of the time. But it meant that I couldn’t swim, so yeah. And then I tried to learn how to swim when I got a bit older. But then, you’d go to a swimming pool with a swimming costume and all of your skin would be showing pretty much. And then, you’d have the lifeguards come up to you and be like, Are you safe to go in the water? So, it’s just like why bother?’

How would you deal with that situation if somebody like the lifeguard asked you that?

I just tried explaining, cos I was with my dad anyway, so he helped explain that it was safe. It’s not contagious. Cos I don’t think people know that it’s not contagious.

I mean, sometimes I’ll think my skin’s really bad. I don’t wanna go out. I just don’t wanna go out and if it’s a friend’s birthday or something, it’s awful, cos I wanna go out to celebrate their birthday, but then I’ll think I’ll look horrible. Like I don’t wanna go out, cos I don’t look very nice. But then, other times, other times I’ll think, like if I don’t have a fringe, if my fringe is growing out and my skin’s really bad, I won’t, yeah, I won’t go out. But like I say, it’s easy to be like that and it’s easy to not go out and I really, really try hard to go out, even when I’m not feeling like it. Because I don’t want to get into that habit. I don’t want to get into that habit of feeling sorry for myself and staying in and not going out. But sometimes it is difficult, cos sometimes, even with all the make-up. Sometimes make-up makes it look worse, cos it’s so dry and I put make-up on top of it and, ah, it just looks awful. So it can be difficult going out and deciding what to wear as well. If I’ve got loads of flakes of skin on my shoulder, which is why a lot of my clothes are bright colours or white or pale. So, sometimes, yeah, it does affect me going out, yeah. And it’s, I mean, it can be upsetting for my boyfriend, cos I can remember once, he said that he’d take me out for dinner and I didn’t want to go out, cos I just looked so bad. And it’s a shame, cos I, I mean I did end up going out and we had a lovely time, but it’s a shame cos it affects other people as well and it shouldn’t.

Like it took me a long time to admit to my friends that I had psoriasis. Like if I got it at16 I probably didn’t tell people till like 21. And I, when I graduated from university like I was probably more confident and started to care less and less about kind of like what people thought and the sort of social side of it. And I was kind of over the stage of my life where I was going out all the time and like, you know, I kind of moved back home and then did start to tell people. But yeah, so for so long I wanted to kind of like keep it this secret, so that when I was out, it didn’t sort of exist and it wasn’t part of my life. And I got quite good at hiding it, so when I did tell people, like most people didn’t know that that was even happening, so.

How did you feel about that sort of hiding it and not being able to speak to anybody about it?

Yeah it was, it was difficult and it was frustrating like I said earlier about having to spend so much longer getting ready. Those kind of things frustrated me because you want, you, there was no like spontaneity. You couldn’t just decide I’m gonna go out and I’m gonna see this person. You had to really think about it, you had to really think about what you were gonna wear. Because I was still in that stage where I didn’t want anyone to know that I had it, so I had to work really hard to make it look like I didn’t have it. So you’re kind of in that cycle where-, if I’d been honest maybe I wouldn’t have had to spend so long getting ready because it, you know, if you could see a bit it wouldn’t matter. But it, it’s just one of those things of a skin condition where you just, you find it unattractive and you’re always going to find it unattractive. You’re never gonna wake up one day and think psoriasis actually looks really great. Like you’re always gonna find it unattractive and want to kind of, like suppress it as much as possible so that people don’t notice.

Could you say a bit more about when you did go to the Dead Sea and whether it was intended originally for psoriasis or-?

Completely just part of a trip that I was doing. I was out there for three weeks and part of it was Dead Sea. And I was like oh, that could be quite good. And we were in for about half an hour. Cos you can’t be in too long. It was even less than that. Got the mud involved, it was great fun. You float, you can like, people reading like newspapers, like floating in the sea. And it stung a little bit, actually. Someone said to me, Have you been to the toilet recently, going to sting. I was like, okay. I wonder how this is gonna take it’, a little bit. It was quite good at the time, so it wasn’t such a worry. But once you’re in and you’re like used to it and it stops stinging, it was fine. And then got showered off and it was a little bit, there was improvement. It’s kind of one of those things, I think if I’d gone back again the next day or a bit later on and done it again, would I have seen more improvement, I don’t know. But, the Dead Sea stuff, like the Dead Sea salts I’ve put in the bath before and that’s helped a bit, definitely.

I think it was before the camera was running, you said that you were potentially considering about going back?

I’m thinking it. Mainly because I’ve got friends out there and I thought like I could do a little like, let’s go on holiday and see friends and skin and yay. Nothing has been solidly like thought about, I’ve been thinking about going out there for years again. So it’s just like, it might happen. I don’t know. It’s not dragging me there at the moment. I’ll see how this treatment goes, obviously. I might end up going out there and not going to the Dead Sea or going to the Dead Sea just for going to the Dead Sea for the day and it makes your skin softer. That’s lovely. But it has been something that I’ve thought about, definitely.

Travel is something I’ve only sort of started thinking about now because it’s only on biologics where you can’t have live vaccines. And I only started Stelara in December, I hadn’t had any plans to go traveling until now and I want to go away to South America. But some areas you need the yellow fever vaccination which is live so there was some restrictions there. And I think that that is really difficult when you’re young. I mean I am getting to the stage now when I am going to go into full time work, so it’s not as much of a factor. But definitely for people thinking about taking gap years, or like going away after school and uni and things that, you know, it is like difficult to have to factor that in. And also even without the vacc-, if you put the vaccinations aside, just the fact that you have a lower immune system and you’re going to countries where you know, like food isn’t as clean and water is-, and like you know the conditions make you feel like you’re more likely ill to get ill, so you kind of tend to worry about things as if you’re like an elderly person because you know that your immune system you know might not be able to handle it and you’re more susceptible to getting ill than the rest of your friends would be.