Heather Mackenzie, 34, is a nanny from West London and is engaged to fiancé Steve, 34, a builder

Heather says:

I have had psoriasis when I was 18. It was triggered after I had a very bad car accident and I was in hospital for two as I broke my jaw in three places, my shoulder and my left knee cap.

Within 24 hours of the accident I had broken out in red blisters all over my stomach and on my right arm. I was quite scared when it happened and when the doctor came round and told me it was psoriasis I was in a daze. I had no idea what it was. He told me it wasn’t serious so I didn’t worry about it.

I didn’t know then that it was a lifetime of agony I had in story and that I’d still be battling with it almost 20 years later. It’s left more of a scar on my life than the accident, which almost killed me.

The first attack that I had in hospital wasn’t that bad compared to what was to come later on. Since the accident I have had a series of terrible outbreaks of psoriasis that have left me scared both emotionally and physically.

The worst attack was when I went on a working holiday to New Zealand in my late 20’s. I broke out in red blisters all over my body and it even broke out on my face. My face was one huge red blistered scab, I looked like I was a burns victim. People looked at me with horror. I was with friends and they panicked when they saw what had happened to me.

When I first developed the condition I had no idea that psoriasis could be so serious or that I’d have attacks again after the first I’d had in hospital after the accident. It took several years for it to dawn on me that this was not just a small skin problem, it was a major health problem and I was told by a dermatologist I went to see in New Zealand that there was no cure and that I would have it for the rest of my life.

I was being told my skin was going to be covered in these dreadful red weeping sores for the rest of my life. It still brings tears to my eyes now when I think about how I felt when I was told that. It was like being told I’d always have a disability, its not just a skin condition, it stops me doing things, makes me feel like a freak and changes my whole personality. I had always been very confident as a young woman but when I was told I’d always have this condition I was totally devastated and my confidence eroded literally over night.

I am generally a very upbeat person but I have to admit my skin condition brings me down and sometimes I do wonder if I can carry on bearing it. More recently I have started going through very black periods of depression because of my condition. There is a high rate of suicide among psoriasis sufferers and I can fully see why. I have never gone as far as feeling like I want to kill myself but I’ve got very down. At times about 70% of my skin is covered with blisters on a bad attack and more recently the attacks have been getting worse and more frequent.

People treat me like I am a leper. I as at home one Christmas a few years ago and had a really bad attack and even my own sister didn’t want to sit next to me on the sofa, that is how bad I look to people, even my own family. It makes me feel like a monster.

Over the years it has eroded my confidence in everything I do, from my relationships with men to my career. I work with children and I often get starred at by other mothers. I was once taking some children I was looking after to the swimming pool and overheard a conversation that one of the mothers was having with one of the pool attendants and she was requesting that I was not allowed to get into the swimming pool. It’s that sort of thing that really hurts. Complete strangers feeling they have the right to come up to me and ask me what is wrong with me. It’s so humiliating.

There are times when I get very angry about what has happened to me. No one else has it in my family, or so we thought. But in fact about five years ago my older sister started developing psoriasis on her nails, it’s nowhere near as bad as mine but it shows it is in our genes somewhere. But neither of our parents have it.

Psoriasis has ruled my life for over ten years now. There is not a day that I don’t worry about it. I often scratch myself raw in the night and don’t even know it, I’ll wake up with blood all over the sheets and my arms red raw. The odd thing is that psoriasis is linked strongly to stress but anyone who knows me will tell you I am so laid back I am practically horizontal so it is even more bizarre that I have it. I am not in a high powered job, I spend most of my days finger painting with children, I just can’t understand why I have got it.

It affects everything I wear. When I have an attack all my clothes have to be picked according to how much of my skin they will cover up. Instead of a winter and summer wardrobe I have a psoriasis and non psoriasis wardrobe.

To say I have tried everything to get rid of it is an understatement. At one point I was even considering being part of a trial of a new drug which had a known side effect of damaging the liver. But at the last minute I decided it wasn’t worth giving myself long term health damage for the sake of my skin. I also can’t take a lot of the drugs as I haven’t had children yet and some of them can negatively affect your fertility.

I have tried keansiology, I am entirely organic on every thing I use on my skin. I have stopped taking anything medicated or drugs as I have tried everything that is available from the doctor and nothing has worked and in some cases it made my skin worse rather than better.

Steve, my fiancé, says my psoriasis doesn’t bother him and that he loves me how I am. Despite being engaged to him I still worry that he is just saying that to make me feel better, I just can’t believe it doesn’t bother him. But that is how psoriasis always makes me feel, insecure and worried what other people think.

But everything changed when ten months ago I discovered Oregon Grape Root products after reading about a trail on the plant extract Oregon Grape Root in a newspaper health section. I immediately ordered some as I always try everything once.

Unlike anything I have ever tried before, the products worked very quickly. I noticed a vast improvement in the fist two weeks. I could not quite believe what was happening was true and after ten years of searching for a cure I told myself not to get too excited as it was probably just a coincidence that my skin was going through a ‘good patch’ when I tried the products. But within a month it was clear they were working more effectively than anything else I have tried. I simply could not believe the improvement. Unlike other skin coal tar based treatments for psoriasis they are actually a joy to use, as they don’t smell awful and they don’t take hours to apply or stain your clothes. Within two months of using the products I’d say I saw about a 60% improvement in my skin, after six months people started commenting how well I looked. And my skin is still improving even now, its getting better all the time. I can now actually imagine that one day my skin will be virtually clear, which is frankly a miracle if I consider that a year ago I was so depressed about my skin I didn’t even feel like going out.

I feel like I am top of the world. I have literally started noticing that the flowers are out and that the sky is blue. I feel happier about everything and have become a much nicer person as a result of my skin getting better. I don’t think people realise how awful psoriasis makes you feel. I am so looking forward to my wedding and I am hoping that, if things carry on improving the way they have since I started using Orgeon products, that I might actually stand a chance of looking ‘normal’ on my wedding day. But my confidence in my new skin is yet to be back to how it was before I got psoriasis. I am planning my wedding dress at the moment and even though my skin is so much better I still do not dare plan to wear a short sleeved wedding dress just in case I have another attack nearer the time. But touch wood I haven’t had a bad attack for over ten months now and my skin is looking really clear, it’s just incredible, I almost dare not hope that I could have finally found a cure for my condition.