When melanin, a pigment that gives color to your skin, starts destroying you’re the particular areas become discolored and usually look white. This type of skin disorder is known as vitiligo. The white patches initially appear in smaller shapes but soon they become large. Vitiligo can occur in any part of the body. Neither the researchers have been able to figure out the exact reasons for sudden lose of pigmentation in the body resulting in vitiligo nor they have been able to find out permanent cure of the disease. So far the available treatment methods can either slow down the diffusion of the disease or help in re-pigmentation to a certain extent.

Vitiligo is not a contagious disease and people coming in contact with an affected person are not in any risk of catching vitiligo. Lose of pigmentation can equally happen in both males and females as well as in every age-group. However the first symptoms of the disease mostly appear in the people below 40 years of age and those having darker skin.

Symptoms

The first signs of vitiligo are formation of irregular whitish patches on the skin, especially those parts which are exposed to sun. These patches can remain in particular areas for years before spreading in other parts of the body. Usually an affected will find vitiligo spots forming in both sides of the body evenly but sometimes the disease may tend to appear only in one side of the body.

Causes

Even the hairs of the affected people become gray at young age. The experts also feel that the appearance of the vitiligo cause frustration in affected people and hence the disease disseminate more rapidly. However, the major cause can be sudden disturbance in the immune system of the affected person due to which there is a loss of pigmentation. Another cause could be inadequate or no production of melanin in the body for an unknown reason. An individual may also have the disease because it has attacked any of his ancestors. Overexposed to the sun is can also cause the disease to occur.

Diagnosis

Your visible vitiligo symptoms are enough to tell the doctor that you are suffering from vitiligo. However, he will carefully examines your body asking questions regarding your health in the past and whether any member of your previous generations was targeted by the disease in the past. He will also check the sensitivity of your skin. The doctor may also prefer to conduct biopsy to ensure that you are suffering from vitiligo and not from any other similar skin disease. A sample of the blood can be taken to find out whether you are anemic or not apart from checking the proper functioning of your thyroid glands.

Treatment

Although there is not lasting vitiligo cure, some treatment techniques can be adopted to check the further diffusion of the disease or to somewhat re-pigment the affected areas. If the white patches are not prominent, especially in those having fair skin, then applying skin care products properly may hide them. When an affected person will go to the doctor, he will first see whether the white patches have been spread in the entire body or are limited to certain areas before deciding to start any treatment method. Usually, the basic objective of the treatment is to either stimulate pigmentation or to depigment the normal skin so that the affected person may have same skin color throughout the body.

It is not necessary that a particular vitiligo treatment method will produce same result in all people because the response to the treatment can differ from person to person. Hence, the duration of the treatment can prolong according to the severity of the disease. In milder cases, the doctor may ask the patient to apply some medicated creams that help in pigmentation. The affected areas can also be exposed to artificial ultraviolet light that too stimulates pigmentation. Some patients prefer grafting of the skin undergoing surgery to get rid of vitiligo. However, there is no guarantee that vitiligo may not appear on the grafter skin after sometime. Another alternative method is tattooing the affected areas.