Moving to warmer humid climate

Hi Brownhammer, I hope that my own experiences might be of some help in telling you what you want to know. I was born and grew up in Australia. I developed mild psoriasis in my late teens, which pretty much came on during winter, and I controlled it by sunbaking in the early spring. But I lived in America for a while (in Connecticut) and during that time my psoriasis developed into a real problem. Fortunately my husband was working for a Professor Nordlund at Yale, a renown skin specialist. His advice? Expose my skin to sunlight, difficult in Connecticut in winter, but we returned to Australia, where the climate and lifestyle seemed to help get my skin back under control. It never really goes away, but the sun and the surf are certainly helpful for me. I still expose my skin to the sun during the winter months, and it continues to help. But as I have got older I have found that heat in fact makes my skin break out, especially humid heat. On the basis of my own experiences, I would say that a climate like that in New Mexico or Arizona might be better if you are thinking of America, somewhere where the heat is dryer. I have been more than once to Florida and the humidity there can be pretty oppressive. And I think that it is not the warmth that is important, but the fact that when it is warm we wear clothes that expose more of our skin to the elements, especially the UV of sunlight. wendyloish

Thank you wendyloish for sharing your experience, you are clearly well travelled. I am open to locations but its good to know that I should narrow down my options to locations that have dry heat.

Hello Currently in Fuerteventura receiving some (wonderful) natural treatment for psoriasis. The treatment centre here is of the strong opinion that a dry climate is helpful for psoriasis, unlike a humid one. Reflecting on some of the posts relating to bacteria.....perhaps there is a link as a humid environment does encourage rapid growth of bacteria etc far more than a dry one. I live in the UK- every time I go somewhere sunny with a dry climate my skin improves. But as we know, psoriasis is a tricky beast and what works for one person will not work for all.

Hi Brownhammer Psoriasis is a b*gger, because each individual reacts differently. Some benefit from sunlight, others get worse. Saying that, here's my experience. I was born in NW England, was first diagnosed with it age 6, and have lived with it for over 50 years and have had pretty much all forms. It comes and goes. My psoriasis gets better with the sunshine, and after living for 5 months in the South of France when I was 21, it cleared up everywhere except on the scalp. I made the decision that I would at some point return for good and did so about 20 years ago. At that time, I'd been diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis and one of my big toes was causing enough pain for me to consider surgery. After moving to a sunnier climate, the pain in my toe started to ease (although it's still disfigured). All other slight joint pains also eased, but I saw no improvement to the plaques on my body. Gradually, with age, the joint pains started to come back, but after watching a TV program about intermittent fasting and its beneficial effects on inflammation, I tried that. I've been doing intermittent fasting since 2012 and all the pains disappeared. However, again with age, the pains sometimes come back. I've cut down on alcohol and that seems to help too. Five years ago the skin plaques were so bad that it was making me depressed, so I asked for UVB treatment. That once again cleared the skin except for the scalp. It's recently started to reappear, tho' I put that down to the stress of Covid and the lack of holiday lying in the sun this year. The worst thing at the moment is the development of psoriasis in the outside corner of my eye. In conclusion, the sunshine helps my psoriasis, but, above all it's the control of stress and inflammation that I believe works best for me. Only you will know what works best for you. Before making any life-changing decisions, talk to your doctor. Good luck.