Greetings to all from Richmond once again!
For those of you who are new here, I have had PLC for nearly 5 years now. I was dx'd with MS in 1998 and must inject interferon every week for the MS. I don't believe the interferon has any impact on the PLC, good or bad, since I had been on the interferon for 7 years before I began to break out. However, interferon is a very strong and nasty drug and it makes me very ill every week when I inject it. And, when I inject it (intramuscular) I get "flu symptoms" which are about 20 times the force of a regular flu. And every week when I take the injection, my PLC goes crazy. The interferon causes me to be ill for 25-30 hours, temps about 103F, aches and pains like I've been hit by a bus, and my legs are once again covered with the pustules. I rarely get them on the inside of my arms or in my hairline, but my poor legs turn purple with the amount of PLC there.
lfn -- T Cell Lymphoma is one of the worse cancers you can get. PLC is in no way, shape or form related to that cancer. Please do not try to self-diagnose yourself. There is nothing worse than doing that and finding out you've been wrong. Psoralen is a form of chemotherapy, overkill for PLC. My daughter in law's youngest brother was diagnosed with this disease 2 years ago and he's had 8 tumors the size of pumpkins removed, but they grow back. He's been on chemo for the 2 years, but it doesn't even maintain the status quo anymore. Please do not scare anyone here with self-diagnoses that have nothing to do with PLC.
Turtledestiny00 -- I don't believe the PLC is hormone related. I had a radical hysterectomy in 1995 and have no ovaries, no hormones. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at Christmas and had a mastectomy and since then the PLC is way out of control. It is so bad that we've had to postpone several operations while my legs healed.
I have learned that it is good to keep acrylic nails because they are thick and rounded and don't break the skin when you scratch. And believe me, everyone scratches. a good thing for children to use are the bath gloves that are usually found with the bath poofs (?) at the department stores. These gloves have a rough texture to them for exfoliating dry skin.
Never take a HOT bath or shower, for that will surely bring them on, as will a sunburn. The worse case I've had of PLC was when I sunburnt one summer. Now I do as my doctor says, no more than 10 minutes of unprotected sun and then lots of sunscreen.
The ointments the doctor prescribed for the itch didn't work, they're too heavy and clog the pores, making the PLC itch worse. Use a light, water-based cream. I use Eucern Original. Many here have had a good track record with whipped cocoa butter, but I still find it too thick for my skin.
I am not a doctor. just someone who has taken 5 years to figure out what to do when I get the break outs. I do find it somewhat amusing that PLC comes from unknown etiology, meaning the doctors and researchers have no idea as to where it comes from, why it only affects some and not others, why some get it only once for a couple weeks and others get it constantly for tens of years. My amusement comes from the fact that professionals can't determine it's origin, how can we plain laymen do it?
I do know that we will never have a drug specific to PLC because there aren't enough of us who have it and it's not worth any pharmaceutical company's R&D to find a cure for it, orphans that we are.
May you all have a wonderful, itch-free week!
Regards,
Linda (aka elseaeff)
