Psoriasis- New to juicing

by Joe
(Philadelphia, PA)

Q: First, thank you for your very informative website. I have psoriasis that gets pretty bad sometimes. I would like to try and treat it with juicing. How long should I go on a juice fast? Would it be bad to have one small meal a day or every other day with the rest of the day consuming fresh veggie and fruit juice?
Thank You.

A: Hey Joe! You're on the right track. In my opinion, food absolutely affects the skin conditions. I write a little bit about it here, if you haven't read it already.

Juicing for skin conditions

When your body has a blockage, it many times will use it's largest eliminative organ (our skin) to push out the toxins if it can't get it out through natural channels. So this causes a host of problems ranging from acne to psoriasis. Juicing and a fast can help cleanse your body to get all of your elimination channels flowing again. It will also raise your immune system so that your body can fight off the imbalances that are causing your body to over-produce skin.

If I were you, I'd try a one to three day juice fast. And yes, adding in a clean meal 1 or 2x a day isn't a big deal. Your body will still detox. Afternoon would be the best time. By "clean meal" I mean things that are preferably organic, unprocessed and uncooked. It would probably be a good idea to avoid meat, dairy and bread too. Examples of good things to eat would be nice salad with lots of cut up veggies with olives and lemon/olive oil dressing, any raw food meals, a raw blender soup, cut up veggies with a natural dip, smoothies, oatmeal, things like that. Google "raw meals" for some ideas. This way the solid food won't interfere with your fast. Things like bread or cheese will slow down cleansing and make your fast uneffective. Plus, it would be too heavy on your belly if you had nothing but juice all day.

If a fast is too much for you, check out just doing a green smoothie fast as it might be easier and is still beneficial. You could have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner....and they don't taste bad!

Limit citrus fruits and tomatoes to one a day as it is known to aggravate psorasis in some people. Nuts have also been said to be an irritant to some, so just something to keep in mind and see how your body responds.

Also, test these out daily see if they help: Drink lots of water with lemon, and try having one glass of dandelion tea each day (I had bad skin issues in the past, and this helps tremendously for me). The dandelion tea doesn't taste good, but it does help keep your liver clean.

You also want to make sure your never constipated. Never. It will aggravate your condition. I give some examples of ways to keep your bowels open at the bottom of the juicing for skin conditions page. But a fast should get things moving for you. And if not, go to the health foods store and get psyllium husk right away. This might be your best friend! For me, this is the biggest factor in clear skin, keeping my bowels open and never getting stopped up.

Taking about 1oz of aloe vera gel every day, might really help you too!

Watercress juice has a high concentration of sulfer and chlorine which is beneficial to anyone with psoriasis. But if you make it, be sure to mix it with at least 2-3x the amount of non-green juice.

Here are some good juicing recipes for psoriasis:

psoriasis recipe 1:
5 carrots
10 spinach leaves
4 sprigs of watercress
1 apple

psoriasis recipe 2:
5 carrots
3-4 sprigs of parsley
1/4 potato
4 sprigs of watercress

Oh, and you should also look into using natural handmade soap with no synthetic fragrance oils.

If you can handle a longer fast...say two weeks or more, that would probably be the most beneficial.

Did you ever watch Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead? Watch it for inspiration.

Hope I didn't overwhelm you with this information and good luck!


Learn more about juice fasting and cleansing