BCC: "K" - Wikipedia article should be interesting and even useful.

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> I have psoriasis (p) and looking for an easy way to determine the 
> cause.

...

> ... measure ...  skin temperature


Justin,

Infrared skin temperature measurement should be reasonably immune to 
moderate layers of skin.

For the sensor to be masked from the skin being measured by dead skin 
requires that thermal input from the environment swamps the input from 
the desired source. So, increasing the thermal resistance of the path 
to ambient will lower the effect of ambient temperature.

ie place the sensor on the skin and place a thermal insulator over the 
sensor. This could be tape, foam etc. A small as possible large as 
necessary block of polystyrene foam would probably work. You'd need 
something which worked in practice without causing irritation or being 
annoying due to bulk or mass.

For those wanting a quick update (as I did) the usual suspect looks 
useful

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psoriasis


_____________

As with any disease whose cause is uncertain and which is "believed to 
be an immune system disease", the path to a solution is, as you know, 
liable to be complex and uncertain. I wish you success in your 
journey. If you have specific related electronic input  I, and I'm 
sure other group members, would be pleased if we could be of 
assistance.

If I were in your position I'd look for every clue I could find to 
what caused p to start in the first place. (You've probably exhausted 
all avenues and moved on from there). Finding the path in *may* give 
clues as to the path out. Or may not :-(. My wife had an immune system 
attack from a believed known source earlier this year which triggered 
an auto-immune response which she appears to be winning the fight 
against after quite some months, but it's a slow and painful process. 
Once the body starts attacking itself there's often no apparent rhyme 
or reason to how things proceed. Her problems is unrelated to p but 
it's interesting (for me) to see how something common enough in the 
environment (in this case Giardia in camping water supplies) can have 
a major attempt at becoming a life long problem.

        Russell


______________________________


"K" is a med student.



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