What could psoriasis with swelling and redness in legs suggest?
Patient: my husband has bad psoriasis on legs and some on body, dr. gave him prednisone for an infection for 2 weeks, took him off and all of  a sudden his legs swelled up and all red, now in am his legs are thinner and during day swelling again and maybe there is fluid in there, the drs. dont know. help me. Doctor: Hello, welcome1. Psoriasis is skin disease in which skin becomes scaly and patchy. Itching is also symptom of this. It is bit complicated disease which takes long treatment course2. I am surprised and bit shocked that doctor is giving you steroid ( prednisolone injections) for psoriasis condition which is totally wrong treatment.3. Due to high doses of injection there is interference of kidney functions and retention of water in lower extremities. kINDLY get the  kidney function test done to assess the effect of steroids 4. It is very very common side of steroids. swelling will go off slowly slowly5. I see 4-5 case of psoriasis every day but i never ever give steroids to them. As it has lot of side effects one of them your husband got other than this steroids can cause pustular psoriasis or further worse the psoriasis.6. Stop the injections immediately7. Start methotrexate 5-10mg once in week and folic acid rest of the day. This medicine needs proper guidance like liver function test, kidney funtion test, CBC 8. I very frequently give methotrexate to psoriasis patients and get very very good results.