Janine found Well-Healed during one of those desperate late-night searches for answers.
Her PPP had started on the sole of her right foot. She was exhausted, in pain, sleep-deprived and trying to understand a condition she had never expected to have.
Several years later she contacted me to say thank you and to share what had happened next. She reported that her PPP and joint symptoms had gone into remission and that, most importantly, she once again felt in control of her life.
PPP appeared when Janine was 46.
Janine said the first symptoms appeared in 2013 on the bottom of her right foot. She also had a rash on her right elbow and pain in her thumb and other joints. At first she had no idea what was happening.
In the summer of 2014 she began searching online using simple symptom descriptions. One of those searches eventually brought her to my blog.
Janine later wrote that finding my story reinforced something she was already feeling: she wanted to understand what was happening in her body and explore what she could change herself.
Her story was never as simple as one trigger.
Stress
Janine described her job as extremely stressful and said the onset of her health problems coincided with one of the most stressful periods of her life.
Hot peppers
She loved very hot peppers but felt that her outbreaks became less severe when she removed them. That was her personal observation, not a universal PPP trigger.
Food quality
She already described her diet as relatively clean, with little processed food, alcohol or sugary drinks. Her recovery therefore involved refining an existing healthy lifestyle rather than starting from zero.
Smoking
Janine was also very open about the fact that she still smoked. I have kept that detail because real recovery stories should not be rewritten to make them look neater than they were.
Janine experimented patiently instead of expecting an overnight answer.
After finding the blog she began experimenting with nutrition and supplements. She told me it took roughly a year to find the combination she felt worked for her. That period involved trial and error rather than one dramatic intervention.
Her routine evolved over time and included probiotics, biotin, vitamins D3, K2, A and C, magnesium, turmeric/curcumin and Moducare. She also used psyllium husks and bentonite clay as part of her routine and experimented with several other supplements along the way.
She also paid close attention to food and stress. Once she felt she had found the right combination, Janine reported that her PPP and joint symptoms moved into remission within the following couple of months.
What I find most valuable in Janine's story is not one particular supplement. It is how patiently she observed her body, adjusted what she was doing and eventually found an approach that worked for her.
Janine reached remission without changing everything.
This is an interesting part of her story. Janine said openly that she had not stopped smoking, even though she wanted to eventually.
That should not be interpreted as evidence that smoking does not matter in PPP. Research consistently identifies smoking as one of the strongest modifiable factors associated with palmoplantar pustulosis.
For me, it illustrates something else: recovery stories are individual. One person can improve dramatically while one recognised risk factor remains present. That does not erase the population-level evidence, and it does not mean another person will respond in the same way.
“The fact that I now control it, and it no longer controls me.”
That was the heart of Janine's message. She reported that the pustules, rashes and joint pain were gone. But emotionally, the biggest change was the feeling that PPP no longer dictated what her life looked like.
She also understood remission as something worth protecting. She continued paying attention to stress, food and the routines that she believed had helped her.
A recovery story does not need to be a universal formula to matter. Sometimes its greatest value is showing the person who is suffering that another outcome is possible.
Chronic does not mean that nothing can change.
The old version of this article called Janine's story proof that PPP is not a chronic disease. I would not describe it that way today. A disease can be chronic and still go into long periods of remission.
What Janine's story does show is that a chronic diagnosis does not tell you exactly what the rest of your life will look like. Symptoms can change. Patterns can be identified. Health behaviours can change. And meaningful remission can be possible.
That was the message Janine wanted to give the next person desperately searching online for hope, just as she once had.
Janine found the blog before my PPP book even existed.
She first discovered Well-Healed in 2014 while I was still learning and writing about my own recovery. When she later shared her story, my book had been published, and she strongly encouraged other people with PPP to read it because it brought the different parts of the approach together.
The book covers the framework I used myself: possible triggers, food, gut health, stress, nutrient status, treatment options and the process of making changes without expecting one single intervention to do everything.
Continue from here.
Sources used for this 2026 update.
- Heidemeyer K, et al. Palmoplantar Pustulosis: A Systematic Review of Risk Factors and Therapies. Read the PPP review.
