Educate your children about vitiligo
TEACH your children to respect others by educating them. Many children and teens have vitiligo and often get bullied at school because they are different.
This is a simplified version of what vitiligo is, from kidshealth. org.
Most of us have skin that is generally the same colour all over our bodies. But this isn’t the case for people who have vitiligo – a loss of skin pigment that causes white spots or patches to appear. No one knows exactly why.
It affects all races. It’s not a form of skin cancer and it’s not an infection. It’s not contagious. What happens? Skin colour is determined by cells called melanocytes. They produce a pigment called melanin, which gives skin its colour and helps protect it from the sun.
Skin colour is determined not by how many melanocytes someone has, but rather by how active the cells are. Dark-skinned people have cells that naturally produce a lot of melanin, while light-skinned people produce much less.
Sometimes the skin stops producing melanin. At first, this might cause a small spot that’s lighter in colour than the skin around it. In time these white patches may spread then remain stable for years. Different types of vitiligo
Focal vitiligo: A person has a few vitiligo spots in a single area.
Generalised vitiligo: A person has many patches and they tend to affect the right and left sides of the body in a symmetrical pattern, like a mirror image. This is the most common type.
Segmental vitiligo: A person has patches on one part of the body. This is the least common type.
Vitiligo is likely to develop on skin that’s exposed to the sun, skin that has folds such as the elbows, and skin around the eyes, nostrils, belly button and genital areas.
Because pigment cells give colour too, some teens may notice greying of the hair or a loss of colour on the lips. Causes Some experts think the immune system is attacking healthy melanocytes. Others think it’s genetic. The risk of developing vitiligo increases in those with a family history of thyroid disease, diabetes and alopecia. Diagnosing vitiligo A dermatologist can usually tell if someone has vitiligo just by looking for the tell-tale patches.
On people with fair skin, a special tool called a Woods lamp might be used. It uses ultraviolet light in a dark room to illuminate areas of damaged skin that would otherwise be hard to see with the naked eye.
Your doctor will ask about your medical history and might do a blood test to check for thyroid problems and diabetes. Occasionally a doctor may perform a biopsy of the affected area to check whether there are pigment cells in the skin. Treatment There is no “cure”. Sometimes the patches go away on their own. Doctors can prescribe treatments
that might help even out skin tone. Some of these you can try at home.
No treatment is likely to be 100% effective. Use a good sunscreen every day. If the skin isn’t protected, vitiligo patches may burn or scar.
Many kinds of concealers are available. Ask your doctor for recommendations.
Doctors may recommed corticosteroid creams; photo-chemotherapy
(Puva), where the skin is exposed to ultraviolet light, sometimes from the sun but more often from a UVA lamp; melanocyte transplants, which works by removing a sample of pigmented skin and using it to grow new melanocytes in the lab. These can be transplanted back.
Patrice Hyde, MD for kidshealth.org