Fet Milner

Skin

About one percent of the population has psoriasis, an autoimmune condition that most commonly results in a rather nasty case of dandruff -- all over the body. It usually looks like red, flaky skin unless it has been inflamed (usually by excessive scratching, or contact with certain chemicals -- like soap), when it may feature lesions that are unwilling to close. The most common places to encounter plaques of psoriasis are upon the elbows, knees, scalp and lower back. It can, though, be found around the groin -- or anywhere else: where there's skin, there psoriasis may choose to flourish.

In simple terms, psoriasis is caused by an error in the immune system's judgment, causing it to attack the skin. Naturally, this means that the skin dies off and has to be replaced much faster than normal. Someone with psoriasis -- I refuse to call them a "sufferer" -- grows a new layer of skin in three days, one tenth of the time it takes the average mortal to do so. Though they must put up with visual stigma, the psoriatic in society tend to heal cuts rather faster, and often have a heightened metabolism, which keeps them delightfully slender. Psoriatic geeks like to compare themselves to Wolverine.

My own history with this pernicious condition began at birth (apparently it is very rare in infants) and has lasted a further twenty-six years with little variation. At boarding school I became inured to having two-hundred kilogram fucktards pushing their hands over the shoulders of my blazer while screaming "snowplow" with infantile delight; I've had children ask why my legs look like they're crumbling; at primary school in the redneck south I was frequently poked with sticks and rulers because my "peers" knew that I bled easily if they hit the right places; I have to be careful about wearing dark colours; I mean to vacuum under the dinner table, where slivers of skin build up as I scratch absentmindedly at my legs or behind my ears, but I usually forget. If I have light-coloured sheets on my bed, there are always bloody spots from where I've scratched at lesions in my sleep, and if I have dark-coloured sheets, the skin is visible everywhere.

The other day, Kate, the News Editor, commented that she'd never noticed how much skin I shed until that day. I looked down and saw some megaliths of the skin variety -- I often manage to detach whole sheets up to half an inch across from behind my ears or on my shins Ð there must have been a couple of dozen. Normally there are only two or three of this size, so I took a closer look. Kate hadn't noticed the larger skin-bergs, and came closer before reeling back at the sight. I poked one with my foot, and it crumbled. It took a good few seconds before I realised that most of the scales were pastry from my lunchtime sausage roll.

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