The Dead Sea is only a short walk away from the hotel, where you can float and allow the oily minerals to seep into pores. The waters, weather and the high oxygen levels in the air put a decisive spring in guests’ steps (+972 8 6689999;
www.tamareshotels.co.il/e/).

Hydrotherapy Centre, Avène Les Bains, near Montpellier, South of France The spring water used in all the spa treatments at Avène is said to have remarkable healing powers. Its soothing property may be due to its long filtering journey through the mountains before it emerges in the springs at Avène.

A three-week stay usually begins with a consultation with a dermatologist, who prescribes a daily skincare regimen. Typically, this includes bathing and showering several times a day in the spring water.

Treatments are tailored to deal with patients’ individual needs, for example, to help treat psoriasis on the scalp. The centre also offers workshops on applying camouflage make-up. Treatments, without accommodation, cost from £500 for three weeks(www.avenehydrotherapycenter.com).

Balikli Kaplica Spa, Kangal, Sivas, Turkey The accommodation is cheap and functional but people come for the two hot open-air and two indoor pools, each home to hundreds of voracious “doctor fish”. It’s all part of a treatment that claims to “heal” psoriasis at this remote spa 5,000 feet high in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey.

The psoriasis treatment regimen takes dedication – 21 days of twice-daily, four-hour bathing sessions in the fish pools is prescribed, plus drinking 1.5 litres of spa water a day on an empty stomach.

The combination of the metal-rich mineral waters, the fish and mountain sunlight leave many guests reporting a significant improvement in their skin condition during the treatment.

According to experts, the removal of superfluous skin flakes by the nibbling carps and minnows aids sufferers because it may help topical medications to penetrate more deeply.

Medical reports are ambiguous about the effectiveness of the spa for psoriasis sufferers. Although a study paper published by Dr Martin Grassberger, of the Medical University of Vienna, showed clear benefits to more than 70 per cent of patients and an average remission time of more than eight months (00 90 346 469 1151/53/54).

The Blue Lagoon, near Reykjavik, Iceland, is home to pools of steaming, milky-blue, geothermal seawater open to all, and a Unique Healing Effects Clinic for psoriasis sufferers.

The silica and blue algae, which give the lagoon its opaque colour, are thought to contain remedial properties for psoriasis, eczema and a host of other ailments.

One of the benefits of Blue Lagoon's psoriasis treatment, compared to treatments in warmer climes, is that it does not require long periods outdoors exposed to sunlight, thereby decreasing the likelihood of skin cancer and untimely ageing of the skin.

All treatment guests need to have a referral from a dermatologist and the clinic’s dermatologists and nurses regularly examine “patients” and evaluate the results.

The Blue Lagoon’s natural treatment of psoriasis involves a combination of showers, bathing in the waters, use of in-house products and UVA/UVB light therapy. It is recommended that guests who enter an intensive full treatment programme bathe twice a day for one hour at a time. The treatment process normally takes 21-28 days.

A week’s twice-daily treatments, with full board but excluding flights, costs from £928pp.

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