“Why am I the only one?”
Pri’s 8-year-old daughter had looked around her school and noticed that no other child had red, scaly patches on their skin. The other kids had noticed too. They asked what was on her legs, and Pri taught her what to say: it’s psoriasis, it’s not contagious, it’s an autoimmune condition. It tugs at the heart to know that a little girl had to learn to say “autoimmune” so she could explain herself to her classmates.
Pri had heard a lot of hard questions. But this one landed differently. “That was the moment I realized her skin was starting to shape how she saw herself,” she told me.
Four years of trying
Pri’s daughter was about four when her psoriasis appeared. It started as scaly patches along her hairline and scalp. Over the next months it spread down her back, onto her arms, and then quickly onto her legs. She itched constantly, and sleep was hard to come by. “Anyone who has seen a child try to sleep while their entire body itches knows how helpless that feels as a parent,” Pri said.
Even the diagnosis took work. Several dermatologists looked at her skin. Some thought it was a fungal infection, and others were hesitant to commit. After months of searching, one finally said plainly, “This is psoriasis.”
The treatments came next: medicated shampoos, steroid creams, and eventually UVB phototherapy, three times a week at a clinic 40 minutes each way. Phototherapy helped, and her skin went into remission. When she started kindergarten, the family switched to a home phototherapy unit.
Despite the phototherapy sessions, the psoriasis had come back.
Pri restarted everything.
She also tried whatever else she could find: Ayurveda, herbal medicine, functional medicine, elimination diets. Nothing worked. After a trip abroad, the psoriasis flared badly, and guttate psoriasis (small, drop-shaped spots) broke out over her skin too. Several doctors told Pri the next step was a biologic, an injected medication that calms the immune system.
“I understood why. But I wasn’t ready,” she said. Her daughter was still so young, and she was afraid of shots. The idea of committing her to lifelong injections felt overwhelming. Pri kept thinking there had to be another way.
Hear Pri tell the story in her own words in her conversation with Dr. Tina Bhutani.
Finding a community
What finally pushed Pri to look for help was how alone her daughter had started to feel.
She found the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF), a nonprofit that funds research, fights for patients’ access to treatment, and brings people with psoriatic disease together. Through NPF’s mentor program, Pri was paired with another mother who had walked the same road. “Just talking to someone who understood changed everything,” Pri said.
A volunteer coordinator then emailed Pri to invite her family to NPF’s summer fundraiser at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, saying it would be a good way to meet other parents and kids. Pri said yes. It was exactly what she was looking for.
A talk in the background
Her daughter had a wonderful time at the event. She entered the hula hoop contest, had her face painted and danced. For once, she was surrounded by families who understood the struggles of living with psoriasis.
Pri, meanwhile, was doing what she had done for years: looking for a treatment. She was at the back of the event, working her way along the pharmaceutical tables and collecting pamphlets on biologics. She had started to accept that they might be the only option left.
There was a speaker sharing his story, but from the pamphlet tables Pri caught only pieces of it. It was enough, though, to catch her attention. He was describing a treatment she had never heard of, and it had worked. She stopped what she was doing and tried to hear the rest. The speaker concluded and sat down at a nearby table, and Pri walked straight over to him and introduced herself.
And that was how I met Pri.
I (Shawn) first attended NPF events when I was diagnosed with a severe form of psoriasis in 2018. NPF played such a positive role in my life by helping me find a community during a tough time. So when Julia Hamel, the NPF associate director, asked me if I could speak at this event, I enthusiastically said yes.
In my talk, I shared my story of struggling with psoriasis, how it cleared with a home version of Goeckerman therapy, and how I later teamed up with two UCSF dermatologists, Dr. Wilson Liao and Dr. Tina Bhutani, to start Solay Health and help others get access to this treatment.
Speaking as an NPF ambassador at the Take Action event at Brookfield Zoo Chicago.
When Pri and I met, she had one pressing question that she wanted to ask me, the one that mattered most to her.
“Is this treatment safe for kids?”
I told her it was. Goeckerman therapy has been used safely for decades, including in children, and it can be done at home.
“Sign us up,” she said.
Eight weeks
Pri’s daughter started treatment with Solay Health. That fall, they met with our dermatologist, Dr. Amit Om, and Pri met weekly with our nurse, Sarah. “I could message her with questions and actually get thoughtful responses,” she said. Sarah walked her through the learning curve, especially occlusion (wrapping the skin after the ointment goes on), and encouraged her to adapt the routine to what worked for her daughter.
Four weeks in, her daughter was about 80% clear. “After four years of living with this disease, watching it reverse so quickly felt unreal,” Pri said. By week eight, her skin was completely clear.
Pri’s daughter before and after Solay’s at-home Goeckerman therapy.
She didn’t miss school or any of her activities. Life went on, just without psoriasis.
“I don’t have psoriasis”
At one point, Pri’s daughter danced around the bathroom, singing, “I don’t have psoriasis.”
This was the girl who had asked why she was the only one, and who had spent years explaining her skin to other people. Now there was nothing to explain.
Pri is still taking it in. “For four years, every prayer, every birthday wish, every fallen eyelash, was the same: please take this psoriasis away,” she said. “I feel like that wish has been granted. It feels like a divine gift.”
As it turned out, her daughter had never been the only one. There was a whole village that had her back. Each played a part in helping her find a treatment that worked. There was a mentor mom who had been there before, a volunteer who sent an invitation, Julia and her team at NPF, Sarah and Dr. Om, and a mother who kept going to every table until she found another way.
Thank you to Pri for letting us share her daughter’s story.
This story describes a patient’s experience with Solay’s at-home Goeckerman therapy. Individual results may vary.