As a little girl, Alisha Bridges developed patches of dry skin on her elbows and knees but her family chalked it up to being “an ashy little girl.” When she was 7, Alisha came down with Chickenpox. Once the Chickenpox virus was over, her grandmother noticed that her skin was changing and “manifesting into something else.” After a visit to the Dermatologist, Alisha was diagnosed with psoriasis.
From that time until she was about 26, Alisha experienced a series of misdiagnoses. The doctors were not familiar with the condition in darker skin tones so they would suggest she had other diseases or a fungus.
They treated her for those conditions and the treatments would never work. She also went through “nine years on and off of phototherapy, which never helped.”
Alisha describes this phase as a “revolving door of ineffective treatments and methods to try to minimize my symptoms due to this disease.” This has been a challenging journey for Alisha.
Alisha experienced a mild case of arthritis in high school, primarily in her right knee. Because she lived in a cold climate, she didn’t think much of it.
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She later learned that she had (PsA) Psoriatic Arthritis. She says this disease has impacted every part of her life; From playing sports, skating, dating, and participating in pageants to shopping for a wedding gown.
She recalls feeling self-conscious about accepting invitations to pool parties and even wearing long-sleeve shirts to work when the uniform called for short sleeves. Alisha also shared how being approached by strangers and even children has been a difficult part of her experience.
By the time Alisha found a Black female dermatologist, 90% of her body was covered by psoriasis. This doctor was the first to give her a biopsy, which confirmed that she did have psoriasis and none of the diseases the other doctors had diagnosed her with.
About a year later, Alisha went to another dermatologist that she “knew from the National Psoriasis Foundation” who was able to