If you suffer from any inflammatory skin diseases like psoriasis or eczema, the American Academy of Dermatology has some good news for you. After much research into how botulinum toxin type A (Botox) works, dermatologists have found that the popular wrinkle-relaxer might be very effective in treating psoriasis and eczema.
Affecting 7.5 million Americans, psoriasis is the most pervasive autoimmune disease in the country and as of date, there is no cure. This means that many scientists spend countless hours in order to look for successful treatments, and in a recent research out of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, they have had a breakthrough.
In a mouse-model psoriasis study, New York dermatologist Erin Gilbert, MD, and Nicole L. Ward showed that toxin injections improved the “clinical appearance of psoriasis and decreased the presence of specific cells in the affected skin of the mouse, while also reducing the number of blood vessels and their adjacent nerves,” according to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD).
This is very important as it indicates that the role of blood vessel and nerve communication in psoriasis and the potential role of botulinum toxin in blocking this communication.
“While there are available therapies to treat eczema and psoriasis, in some cases there may be small areas where these therapies are not effective,” says Dr. Gilbert. “In these instances, botulinum toxin injections could hypothetically provide another treatment option and potentially allow patients to stop using topical steroids for a while.”
