Psoriasis-A Love Story

The story of one woman’s attempt to deal with her chronic skin condition.

In this debut memoir about the pursuit of a cure for her psoriasis, Martin leads readers through her treatments—many of them unconventional—which have spanned nearly three decades. Martin explains that when she was first diagnosed, she pursued the standard medical treatments for the condition, which has no known cure, but found that they did little to improve the psoriasis and often left her feeling worse than before. She then proceeds through a series of alternative treatments—from Hawaiian prayer to colonics to dowsing to psychic healing. Martin writes of accumulating thousands of dollars of credit card debt in her pursuit of alternative treatments, but she brings a sense of humor to her travails, as when she describes the practitioner of Chinese medicine who was so offended by her body’s energies that he had to leave the room. At the same time, it appears that Martin is earnest in her beliefs that California Sen. Dianne Feinstein should have responded more seriously to Martin’s contention that psoriasis is her body’s response to airborne toxins delivered by chemtrail spraying, or that carrying an EMF protection device will shield her against ambient electromagnetic radiation. Readers may also find her credulous as she cites an online article as the source of her information or writes about the archons—“a cyborg type species made of inorganic matter”—that have implanted her with devices that must be removed for a $156 fee. Martin enthusiastically embraces concepts well outside the mainstream, and her willingness to try yet another nostrum after each one fails is unlikely to win over skeptics. Nevertheless, in the book’s concluding chapter, she reports that she has seen an improvement in both her mindset and her psoriasis symptoms, so readers interested in alternative medicine may find it a worthwhile read.

A pleasant narrative of experiments in natural cures, alternative treatments and looking for a cure outside the mainstream.