Many people know the pains of suffering dandruff, and the irritation that comes from having to wipe away flakes of skin that have been falling out of your hair.
Well, people who suffer psoriasis on their scalp have it even worse, with worse flaky and scaly patches of skin.
Those people may be wondering how they can help treat the skin condition. For example, does having short hair help with the scalp psoriasis?
Well, we’ve got the answers for you! In our guide below you’ll find out all you need to know about psoriasis as a whole, and whether having short hair is better for psoriasis that’s affecting your scalp. Read on!
Is Short Hair Better For Scalp Psoriasis?
To begin with, let’s look at answering the big question. In short, the answer is yes! Having your hair cut shorter will help you with your scalp psoriasis for a number of different reasons, and it will make it much easier to tend to.
We’ll get into all those reasons very soon in the article.
What Is Psoriasis?
You may be wondering what psoriasis (see also ‘10 Best Creams for Psoriasis Flare-Ups‘) actually is, and what characterizes it. To put it simply, psoriasis is a skin condition that creates patches of flaking, which then become scales.
For some people, it is only mildly irritating, but for other people who suffer from it it can be a source of annoyance and itchiness.
The appearance of psoriasis can vary slightly depending on skin color. On the whole, whether you’ve got black, brown, or white skin, then the flaky patches will look red or pinkish.
The scales that then form will appear quite the opposite, looking silver or white, a big contrast.
However, on black and brown skin the flaky patches can also appear dark brown (or even purple, like bruising), and the resulting scales can look gray. This isn’t really the case on white skin.
Psoriasis is a disease that lasts a long time, and doesn’t go too easily. There will be times where it disappears, completely or partially, only to then come back at later dates.
Scalp psoriasis, as you can guess, is when all of this occurs on a person’s scalp. This means that the top, sides, and back of their head can have red flaky patches, with silver or gray looking scales.
Reasons Why Short Hair Is Better For Scalp Psoriasis
There are a good variety of benefits that a scalp psoriasis sufferer can enjoy from having their hair cut shorter.
It Helps To Hide The Flakes
You may not have thought it, but short hair actually helps to hide the flakes of skin that come from scalp psoriasis, much better than long hair does.
This may seem odd, because you’d think that with long hair then the flakes would have more places to hide – and short hair would just expose them more. But this isn’t the case!
No, long hair actually makes the flakes more visible, because the flakes have lots of longer individual hairs that they can get caught on.
Even if a person shakes their head, trying to dislodge hair flakes, then the flakes can get attached to the long hairs and refuse to come off.
With that, you’ll have to brush at the hair, which just takes more time.
With short hair, however, there is less for the flakes to get caught on. Since each individual hair is shorter, the flakes will easily go past them.
It Makes It Easier To Use Shampoo
With that being said, there shouldn’t be that many flakes on the scalp anyway, because short hair allows you to thoroughly and easily apply shampoo when washing your hair.
However, you don’t just want to be using any old supermarket shampoo. You’ll want to get some specialized “coal tar” shampoo.
This type of shampoo helps to thicken the skin on your scalp, slowing down the rate at which the skin cells grow, and helping to curb flakiness.
However, you apply it a little differently to other shampoos, in the fact that you let it sit for about 5 minutes before washing out.
This allows it to work its magic, getting to every part of your scalp and helping to treat it. If you wash it out too soon, then it won’t have had time to be as effective as it otherwise would.
The benefit of having short hair when you’re doing this is that you’ll be able to properly massage the strong shampoo into your scalp.
With longer hair, there’s a risk that the shampoo will just be clinging to the hair.
This is nice for making it clean and healthy, but it’s hardly getting to the scalp beneath that mat of hair. With short hair, you can get to the important area.
It Dries Quickly
Also on the topic of hair washing, your hair will dry much quicker when it’s shorter. This makes perfect sense, since long hair will have much more to dry, and will therefore take longer.
However, this has more benefits than just saving you time! It is often the case that damp patches of scalp will become itchy.
If something is itchy, you will likely scratch it, and then you’ve got flakes and damaged skin again. With short hair, the hair should dry quickly and thoroughly, meaning that you won’t be as tempted to scratch at it.
Psoriatic Arthritis Pain
A number of people who suffer scalp psoriasis develop psoriatic arthritis. Long hair, with its weight and size, can often worsen the pain that comes from this disease, so having short hair will make dealing with it a lot easier – if you get it.
Final Thoughts
Scalp psoriasis can be annoying, but having short hair is a great way to reduce the irritation and itchiness.
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