Kim Kardashian has opened up on Kourtney Kardashian‘s website ‘Poosh‘ about the impact her psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis have had on her life.
The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star confessed in the essay that at times the flare ups of the auto-immune condition left her unable to use her hands and in extreme pain.
WATCH: Kim uses her KKW Beauty body makeup to cover psoriasis
Psoriasis is a chronic, genetic, auto-immune disease. It appears on the skin, often as red, scaly patches that itch and bleed.
The 38-year-old explained that her mum, Kris Jenner, also suffers with the condition, but that she is the only one her siblings to have inherited the disease, experiencing her first flare up 13 years ago.
“When I was 25, I had my first psoriasis flare-up. I got a common cold, and since psoriasis is an auto-immune condition, this triggered it. It was all over my stomach and legs. Luckily, in my apartment complex at the time, my neighbour was a dermatologist. I showed it to him, and he said to come into the office and he would give me a shot of cortisone and then hopefully it would go away (since it was my first big outbreak). I did this and my psoriasis completely went away for about five years,” Kim wrote.
The condition lay dormant for years, but then returned when Kim reached her thirties.
“This is when my real psoriasis journey began. For the past eight years, although the spots are unpredictable, I can always count on my main spot on my right lower leg, which consistently stays flared up. I have learned to live with this spot without using any creams or medication—I just deal. Sometimes I cover it up and sometimes I don’t. It doesn’t really bother me,” Kim shared.
While Kris was able to treat her psoriasis with UV therapy, that form of treatment had zero affect on Kim’s condition—although she reveals that it fully went away during her pregnancies, only to return once she’d given birth.
“Earlier this year is when it got extremely bad—it covered my whole face and a majority of my entire body,” she confessed.
And while the skin flare ups were extremely uncomfortable, her condition took a turn for the worse when she started to experience pains in her bones, which was when her battle with psoriatic arthritis began.
“One night, I woke up to use the rest room and I physically couldn’t pick up my phone. I thought it was strange but maybe I just slept on my hands weird and I was so tired, I didn’t need to be checking my phone at that hour anyway. I fell right back asleep,” she said.
“I woke up that morning and I still couldn’t pick up my phone. I was freaking out — I couldn’t even pick up a toothbrush, my hands hurt so badly. I had worked out the day before and we did an arm day, so I thought maybe one of the exercises strained my hand.”
While Kim says she initially tested positive for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, her diagnosis was later revised by her doctor and she was told she also had psoriatic arthritis.
Although the condition is incurable, Kim now uses “ointments, cream, serum, and foams” to try to manage her condition, and says she has become “comfortable” with her psoriasis.
WATCH: Kim seeks help from a medium to fix her psoriasis
