Psoriasis Sufferers - The Itch that Just Won't Stop

I have been suffering from psoriasis since my junior year of highschool, going onto my fourth year now with this annoying, itchy disease. I'm sure that any other person here with psoriasis has spent countless hours and dollars researching any way to make their skin feel and look "normal". I've read peoples' stories online about how they've more than $6,000 on products, books, and treatments that either didn't work or didnt provide the relief they were looking for. I'm sure that you'd like to live a medication, prescription free life - I know I would. If I have to go back on Methotrexate again, I'll need a liver biopsy by the time I'm 22... no thanks. So, for all my fellow people living with psoriasis, I thought I'd share with you the treatments and natural remedies that have given me some relief from the flaky, relentless itch.

I can't even tell you how many hours I've been online hopelessly looking for some kind of miracle lotion, but after all those hours I can safely tell you that it simply doesn't exist. There are, however, a number of natural supplements, lotions, and the like that can reduce your psoriasis over time and make you less reliant on those harsh medications and steroid ointments. I've found that taking an Omega 3.6.9 Supplement daily has made my skin more healthy overall, and my psoriasis patches have been taking longer to reform or flare up since I began this supplement 2 years ago. About 8 months ago, I began taking a Green Tea Extract, because when does a college student have enough time to make and drink 10 cups of green tea a day? I believe that the green tea has improved my overall health, and is possibly even preventing the bad side effects from when I was taking Methotrexate. Recently, I also began taking a Milk Thistle supplement - I'll update you later on how that goes.

Besides the supplements, there are thing you can do on the outside as well. One of my reccomendations is Neem Oil. It doesnt have to be in a lotion; it can be in a soap, moisturizer, or even extract form. This softens your skin, reduces itching, and I find that it makes the inflamations be less severe. You can also try Dead Sea Salts. This also helps to soften the skin, but overtime it has made the redness and inflammation decrease significantly. Applying a good aloe vera to my skin after the shower will increase moisture as well. This is extremely important for psoriasis! Patches are less likely to develop on smooth, soft, moisture filled skin. If you let your skin dry up or crack, that's when a flare up is bound to happen. This might not be true of everyone but it has been true on my skin.

Even with all of these natural remedies, there are still times when I have to use my Protopic or Steroid ointment. I use a lot less of it now than I used to, and apply a lot less to the patches when it's needed. Putting a bandaid over the patch after I apply the ointment will help it absorb more, but be careful not to use a huge gob when you do this.. your skin might thin over time. Needless to say, these non-prescription methods have worked for me. I havent needed to go to my dermatologist in over a year, and I only have about 8 patches on my body right now, none of which are larger than a quarter. Before I started using these remedies, 80% of my lower legs were covered in large, raised, flaky patches of redness and raw skin. I wish that I had taken pictures of my legs then so that I could show you the difference now. I can now walk outside in public in a skirt or shorts and not feel ashamed, as my lower legs look completely normal!

Making Money Online - Not as Easy as it Sounds

As I am a college student, I'm always thinking about things like loans, FAFSA reports, and the works. I also try and find ways to offset my future of having relentless student loans creeping up behind me every month. Whilst stuck inside a few days ago because of the rain, I kept seeing TV ads for making easy, fast cash online with little to no work involved. My first thought? "Yeah.. right..". After some thought, I decided to check up on some of the ways that the ordinary like us can make some spare cash online, and how much effort really needs to be put into these websites.

First, there were tons of websites offering to pay me good money for simply filling out surveys. Now, there are so many of these websites nowadays that I can't talk about all of them here, so lets just look an example. OnlyCashSurveys.com gives you $5 just for signing up. Sounds great already, right? The truth is, you can't simply sit at your computer all day and fill out surveys. The website has to match you to surveys based on the information they give you, and these are sent to your email. Also, you have to reach a minimum amount of $20 before you can put the money you've earned into a paypal account. Most of these survey websites only end up paying 10 cents or some kind of point system to their users, so making any kind of realistic amount of money is hard work and takes some dedication. Not my route of choice, but if you're content with making enough money each month for an extra cup of coffee in the morning, go for it.

One place that more people should check out is CraigsList. This is a great, free website that millions of people visit daily - meaning a lot of people are looking in the "For Sale" section of the site. Come on, everybody has stuff they don't need. It's probably sitting above your head in the attic, in some boxes in the basement, or maybe even shoved under the bed. I've been using this great resource to sell Cds, books, and used toys that are cluttering up my closet because I have no use for them. It might take a few weeks for any of the ads you post to get some bites from people that want your stuff, but if you do manage to sell something, it's a win-win for you.. you get rid of that stuff and are left with some extra cash in your hands. The cons? People can be sketchy. Like, trenchcoat-wearing "meet me by the back of my van" sketchy. If you're going to meet with a person to sell your stuff, talk to them on the phone at least once, tell other people where you will be, and meet in a public place. Also, avoid people wanting to trade or have you ship your things to them.

An odd suggestion I had from a professor was to sell my photography online at stock websites like Shutterstock. They say you will earn between .20 to .25 cents per download of your image. Not very much if you ask an amateur photographer like me, but for a professional who can upload thousands of pictures to this site, those 20 cents could add up to something substantial. Uploading images can be a little tricky at this place. They require you use an FTP client like filezilla and then connect it to their ftp host... a little confusing but it shouldn't take too long to figure out. Note that this is one of the few sites I found that lets you upload and sell for free.. at other sites you must pay yearly subscriptions of up to $55.. not worth it to me.

I know there's about 100 more ways you could make money.. blogging, freelance writing, odd jobs and whatnot, but I think I want to end with a money-making site that I have been using for about a month now: Amazon Mechanical Turk. It's based on the idea that, while computers can do almost anything now, there are still jobs and tasks that are much simpler and easier when done by a person, or human intelligence, rather than artificial intelligence. It's free to join, theres no minimum amount earned before you can get your money, and you can get it put directly into your bank account or into an amazon gift card. No hassling with PayPal.. that's a definite plus for me. You perform simple tasks for companies and websites like filling out suverys, being part of a research study, copying and pasting things, editing an article, or finding some basic information online. They can take between 10 seconds and 10 minutes, and vary on pay depending on the task. Some tasks only pay 1 cent, others pay upwards of $5.00 - it all depends on who needs what done in a particular day. You work when it's convenient for you. Work on the site for a few hours and earn $20-30 daily, or work a little when you feel like it. I've only worked there for about 2 hours in the past week and have accumulated $17.40. It's not enough to pay for my textbooks in the fall, but it is enough to help with little expenses like food and clothes. Out of all these "money making" sites, this is the one I would reccomend the most.