Selfsufficientish.com

My OH has Psoriasis and I want to make him a bath salt to relax in and help with his Psoriasis... looking it up online it says Dead Sea Salts are the best and i was wondering if anyone knew of a place which sold them at a reasonable price so I can get started as he's really suffering at the moment

Not sure about dead sea salt but most sea salts and sea weeds will have a positive effect. Its something to do with the minerals. Try using a good quality salt like malden, just throw a handful in the bath as you are runnning the hot (before you put in the cold or it might not all dissolve) team it up with lavender for extra soothing.

I would have thought Maldon salts prohibitively expensive for chucking in the bath... Sea salt from a asian supermarket is usually a good price, and I have bought some on line from 'summernaturals' before

If you find it works and want to buy in bulk, Peacocks seem quite good. They do every kind of salt imaginable.

I'm noot sure of the benefits of Dead Sea salt but I do know my Grandma suffered badly with psoriasis. Over many years she learned how to treat it and live with it and her approach was as follows if there is anything extra you could glean from it:

1. Sea and sun did it most good. She believed the salt in the water was not the main factor but the saltwater itself. I never did work that one out but I have read online that this is a possibility as there are many other elements in seawater beyond the salt. She used an ultraviolet lamp quite a lot when there was no natural sunshine around.

2. A trip to a river with natural sulphur springs in the USA worked wonders. Apparently there are minute fish there which actually nibble away the affected skin and people sit out in the river bed on stools letting the warm water wash over them and the fish bite away!

3. She also used a cream based on something called Oregon Grape root. I'm not sure if this can be found in a bath oil or something similar but I do know she was very happy with the cream.

4. Coal tar soap

It isn´t something I have ever suffered from but as I lived with her when I was a child I do remember all her little "treatments". I hope you come up with something useful anyway.

I forgot to add Bergamot essential oil is a good anti-psoriatic. Take care in the sun with it though.

Thanks for your replies.

He's just getting fed up with it now, the doctor only seems to want to prescribe him horribly greasy creams to smother himself in which don't really seem to do much to be honest and smearing yourself in cream loaded with steroids isn't going to be good in the long run anyway so we're looking at other, more natural remedies.

Thanks for the point towards Peacocks, have sent them an e-mail for a price list.

I just want to make him a simple bath salt, a shampoo and some cream or gel or something to rub on afterwards.

Obviously it will have to be in conjunction with what the doctor says but we might just try a patch and see which one improves with which treatment, we're a bit sick of GP's insisting chemical rubbish is the only way to go and natural is a load of hogwash when their treatments have so many undesired side effects.

Yep, sun is great for Psoriasis and we are trying to get hold of a lamp at the moment.

As for the fish... they tried that one in exclusive health spa's not so long ago and found out that it did more damage then good because the fish were moving from foot to foot and spreading bacteria and whatnot between the different people and then was promptly outlawed on health and safety grounds.

He has some coal tar shampoo... smells lovely but apart from prescribed stuff it's really hard to get a hold of coal tar soap anymore as the ones in the shop have 'coal tar fragrance' in it

At the moment it's a vicious circle, it's brought on by stress and we've had alot of it recently which brings out his Psoriasis and then he gets stressed about it which makes it worse and on and on and on.

Might head down the chemist and see if they have any sea salts in and make a start at least.

Ohhh Bergamot is lovely and he did have some Bergamot aftershave a while ago from the Body Shop which he liked to that might be a goer

I'm not sure but you might find Polytar products still have coal tar in them and you can get them from oridinary pharmacies like Lloyds.

I suppose it would be hard to keep the fish in health spas etc, these were living free in a river bed. They also nibbled my skin when I was there because I had some grazing with lava dust embedded in it (from a cycle fall). They managed to get every scrap out. It was the peculiar feeling - they were so tiny as to be almost invisible.