More Than Skin Deep: A Psoriasis Love Story

Three years ago, when Todd Bello met the woman with whom he would fall in love, he didn’t need to confess that he’s had psoriasis for 32 years. “My personal Facebook page is all about psoriasis,” says Bello, 60, who started blogging about life with the condition on the National Psoriasis Foundation’s website in the mid 2000s and created the private Facebook group Overcoming Psoriasis in 2007 to help people with psoriasis support each other. “I’m not hiding anything.”
Bello’s psoriasis journey began when he was 28. He was living on New York’s Long Island, married “to a great person,” raising a son (with a daughter on the way), running a successful pool business, and volunteering for the fire department when he noticed a spot on his scalp. It didn’t go away. A dermatologist gave him cortisone creams, but it kept getting worse. “It was engulfing my body from head to toe, especially my arms and back,” he recalls.
He also had inverse psoriasis, which thrives in moist areas including the armpits, groin, and buttocks, and he eventually developed psoriatic arthritis, which still causes pain in his joints. At the time, there were no prescribed medications other than topical steroid ointments. “Everything changed for me. It was really traumatic,” Bello says.
Searching for Psoriasis Treatment and Acceptance
Bello went to healing Masses (a Catholic service with healing prayers), traveled to the Dead Sea in Israel twice for climate therapy, and wound up selling his pool business and working for the post office, from which he eventually retired on a medical disability. “It really affected my self-love and my self-confidence — I kind of gave up on everything. My wife told my children I wasn’t the same person who she married.” He’d be embarrassed by the “snowstorm” (psoriasis flakes) he’d leave behind in someone’s car or at his dermatologist’s office. It affected intimacy, especially the inverse psoriasis, when he would have painful outbreaks in his groin area. “You want to have sex, and you just have to put up with the pain.”
Veena Vanchinathan, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in the San Francisco Bay area, often hears about these kinds of emotional issues with her psoriasis patients. “A very high percentage, regardless of age, tell me it’s affecting their life. It makes them shy. They don’t want to go out with friends. In terms of dating, it has a huge impact, especially when you’re beginning an intimate relationship.” Fortunately, she says, an array of new treatments now makes controlling the condition much more effective.
It took many years for Bello to get there. He was on experimental drugs, some with serious side effects, including one that worked but was withdrawn before approval. His red, itchy splotches roared back. In 2005, a new drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration provided real relief, but it stopped working after about five years. Finally in 2010, a new class of medication, a biologic, provided enormous benefit, which continues for Bello to this day. “It was like a miracle,” he says.
These treatments, when appropriate, “can achieve really great results where the psoriasis is barely visible, if at all,” says Dr. Vanchinathan.
Going Back Into the Dating World
In 2015, Bello and his wife divorced. He doesn’t blame his psoriasis, he says, although “it definitely affected our relationship.” The breakup was amicable and they remain close as parents.
But he was unprepared for the dating world. His symptoms have improved but emotional scars remain. “I still have self-esteem issues,” he says. “I can’t erase it.” He got help from a mental health counselor, which was tremendously positive. Eventually, a woman in the Facebook group, who also has psoriasis, reached out to him, and they started going out. “That flourished for about five years, and then we just went our separate ways,” Bello says.
Time went by, punctuated by a few dates — some good, some bad — but nothing clicked. So Bello decided to try online dating by joining Match.com. “I really wanted to find someone to spend the rest of my life with,” he says. “I knew I could find someone who would love me.”
Through the service he met Kim, who is a year younger than him. They took it slow, texting via the app and eventually exchanging phone numbers. After three months, they met in person. She was renting a condo on Captiva Island in Florida, and Bello has a house in nearby Fort Myers, so they met for lunch at a restaurant in downtown Captiva.
“I was taken aback by her looks, her personality. I was attracted to her right off the bat,” he says. She told him about her own difficult divorce, her issues with her kids, and her “complicated” life. “I said, ‘You need someone to ground you,’” recalls Bello. Within a week, he went with her to Las Vegas to help her retrieve a car left at a hotel due to COVID-19 issues. Although she doesn’t have psoriasis herself, “she’s been through a lot,” says Bello.
Growing Into His Skin
The couple recently moved in together. “She supports me with everything,” Bello says. “It’s working out to be a beautiful relationship.” He knows he has grown as a man and a human being. “I know how to treat a lady now, as opposed to the young punk that I was, you know—obnoxious. I treat her like my girlfriend every day now. I buy her a lot of flowers. My happiness just exudes from everything in my life.” Bello credits his dermatologist with making it possible for him to find love again.
Vanchinathan advises anyone with psoriasis to work with a board-certified dermatologist “to make sure you’re getting an accurate diagnosis. That way your treatment will be as helpful as possible,” she says. “My goal is to get your psoriasis, which is affecting your confidence level, to the point where you’re happy with your skin, where you feel comfortable.”
Bello is also grateful for his psoriasis friends. “A peer group of people with psoriasis is so important, people telling each other that they’re worth it, that you can overcome this, that there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” he says. As a psoriasis community leader, he has seen people give up on the possibility of finding a romantic partner. “Some people say, ‘Hey, I can’t handle it, or I just don’t want to do it.’” He doesn’t judge them, but he does appreciate people who, like him, find a way to love. “It’s like a tree growing out of the side of a mountain, overcoming a lot of challenges. You have to keep trying. Most people with this disease are hindered by society. But having psoriasis doesn’t make you unlovable.”

Mohiba Tareen, MD
Medical Reviewer
Mohiba Tareen, MD, is a nationally acclaimed board-certified dermatologist. She practices medical, surgical, and cosmetic dermatology at her Minnesota medical practice, Tareen Dermatology. Dr. Tareen takes joy in providing comprehensive dermatologic care to the entire family — from acne, to skin cancer, hair loss, and anti-aging, she provides her expertise to patients at all stages of their lives. Cosmetically, Tareen believes in subtle and natural aesthetic enhancements.
Personally, she is proud of her husband, a fellow caring physician, and her active brood of five children.

Bob Barnett
Author
Most recently, Bob served as editor In chief of Cancer Health magazine and its website, CancerHealth.com. Now an independent journalist once again, Bob writes for Cancer Health, Brain & Life (a publication of the American Academy of Neurology), and other publications. He lives in New York City.