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Palmoplantar Psoriasis symptoms are changes on the palms and the soles - the skin gets very dry and thickened and starts peeling, there appear phials, deep painful cracks and erosions, which can merge with one another and break open. This can significantly interfere with activities, cause pain walking, can be severely debilitating and distressing for the sufferer. The effects on overall health are small.
The lesions frequently are combined with skin psoriasis elsewhere. Palmoplantar Psoriasis may sometimes resemble other illnesses, particularly: hand dermatitis, eczema, and mycosis. This may make for a difficult diagnosis, but signs of psoriasis elsewhere help to make a correct diagnosis.
Palmoplantar Psoriasis is much more common in people who smoke or used to smoke tobacco, but unfortunately giving up smoking doesn't always result in a remission.
The causes of flare-ups are not known, but pressure and rubbing will make it worse.
Palmoplantar Psoriasis can present itself in one of two forms:
1) Common Palmoplantar Psoriasis (dry and with no pustules)
This type of Psoriasis affects the hands or feet (or both) with very dry, thickened skin, fine shedding of the skin, often involving splitting and cracking and with a silvery scaling covering the palms and soles. The lesions usually have a red surface and sufficiently clear boundaries.
This condition is sometimes called "palmar psoriasis" (affects the palms) or "plantar psoriasis" (affects the soles) respectively. There are no pustules involved with this type of psoriasis.
2) Palmoplantar Pustulosis, PPP (wet and with pustules)
The "fleshy" areas of the hands and feet develop about 0.5 centimeters large yellowish pustules. These Pustules are very pronounced on the reddened patches of skin, and contain non-infectious pus (white blood cells).
Throughout 1-2 weeks after their appearance, the pustules usually become smaller, lose its yellowish color, and become covered with a brown scale. Usually, the disease becomes much less active for a time after peeling.
At first there appear only a few scattered pustules, but later on the pustules may start rapidly spreading and cover a wide area. The skin starts cracking and splitting and there often occurs bleeding.
There appear weeping cracked lesions with abundance of tiny yellow blisters. The blisters may be very painful. Due to their yellow color the blisters look infected, but they are not. Within a period of days, the pustules turn brownish and peel off, and the new pustules may then appear instead of the old ones. The exposed skin is red and very sensitive. The process can go on for years, progressively worsening and becoming more debilitating with time. It can make walking extremely difficult for the sufferer.
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