“For so much of my life, I felt like I have to hide,” the singer shared in an emotional and raw Instagram post.
Many people with psoriasis, a chronic autoimmune skin condition that affects more than 8 million Americans, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF), shared photos of their skin on social media to mark World Psoriasis Day (29 October). That included singer-actress LeAnn Rimes, who shared two incredibly personal and beautiful images on Instagram.
“This is finally my time to be blatantly honest about what psoriasis is and what it looks like,” Rimes wrote in the caption.
In Rimes’ Instagram images, her skin is fully exposed. “I’m tired of hiding,” she wrote. “When you hide your physical body, there is so much that accumulates in your mental emotional and spiritual health. You feel like you are holding yourself back as if you are in a cage.”
Rimes also wrote an essay for Glamor, in which she said she was first diagnosed with psoriasis when she was just two years old. While psoriasis is seen most often for the first time in young adults, the NPF says that about 20,000 children under the age of 10 in the US are diagnosed with the condition each year.
“By the time I was six, about 80% of my body was covered in painful red spots, all but my hands, feet, and face,” wrote Rimes. That was in the ’80s and psoriasis was not being talked about openly. “In the world, we live in, our ‘flaws’ weren’t invited to the forefront,” Rimes said.
She tried everything to keep her condition under control, including steroid creams, “important drugs”, and wrapping her body in coal tar and Saran Wrap. When he was on stage, he signed his first record deal at age 11, often relying on jeans or two pairs of pantyhose, even in the sweltering heat, to mask his psoriasis. “Under my shirt, my entire stomach would be covered in thick scales that would hurt and bleed,” he wrote. “For much of my life, I felt like I had to hide.”
At 20, Rimes finally found a psoriasis treatment that helped keep her skin clean. It does not give the name of the medicine, but it does refer to the injections. If topical treatments such as steroids don’t clear up psoriasis, doctors may suggest injectable medications, according to the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD).
As she got older, Rimes managed to extend the amount of time between her shots, until she was comfortable taking them off entirely in 2017. But everything changed earlier this year. “All hell broke loose in the world, and inside of me, as I sure happen to so many other people in the midst of this pandemic,” she wrote. “With so much uncertainty going on, my breakouts returned.”
“There are some people for whom stress is clearly a trigger [for psoriasis flare-ups],” Mark Lebwohl, MD, chairman of the NPF medical board, previously told Health.
The stress-psoriasis cycle can be cruel, but certain steps can lessen the blow. California-based dermatologist Ava Shamban, MD, recommends relaxation and meditation breathing exercises. But avoid a long soak in a hot bath, attractive as it may seem. For the sake of your skin, the less time in hot water, the better. “Take a relaxing bath with oatmeal, but do it quickly,” Dr. Shamban previously told Health. “Choose shorter, warmer showers and baths.”
Rimes has spoken before having psoriasis; In 2008, she became involved with the “Stop Hiding From Psoriasis” campaign, which was a collaboration between NPF and AAD. But as she writes in her essay, this time it is different.
“When I first revealed it, it was a big problem for me to go out and say, ‘I’m dealing with this.’ But a lot of people replied, ‘My God, your skin is so clear!’ “He wrote.” Because, yeah, I was talking about it only when my skin was clean. I think people thought I was making it up because they had never seen me with an outbreak. ”
Rimes describes the powerful and beautiful photos as a “sigh of relief” that he desperately needed. And to her surprise, they weren’t as difficult to see as she expected. “It’s one thing to see yourself and judge yourself in the mirror; I thought it would be even more difficult in a photo, so in the past I never allowed people to take photos of me during shoots,” she wrote in Glamor. “Being in our own bodies, we judge ourselves so harshly. But when I look at these photos, I see so much more than my skin.”
