Vitiligo is a disease that occurs when the melanin-producing cells in the epidermis suddenly fail or die completely, resulting in expanding patches of milky-white on your skin, hair, or eyes. There is currently no cure for this disease, but sometimes vitiligo will stop on its own.
Fortunately, there are many treatments aimed at slowing the progression of vitiligo, restoring skin color, or evening skin tone. These treatments range from medications and therapies to some surgical procedures, and it may require several months of trial and error before figuring out which treatment works best for you.
Vitiligo Medications and Therapies
While there currently aren't medications that have the ability to stop the spread of vitiligo, there are many drugs and therapies that can improve the appearance of your skin.
- Vitamin D – Dovonex is a topical calcipotriene cream that, when applied to the skin in combination with ultraviolet light, can reduce the affects of vitiligo. However, it can produce undesirable side effects, such as rash, dry skin, and itching.
- Immune system medications – For people who have only small areas of depigmentation limited to the face and neck, this is a potential treatment that has few potential side effects. Ointments that contain calcineurin inhibitors can be used with UVB light.
- Creams for inflammation – If you catch the disease early enough, applying a topical corticosteroid cream to the affected areas can help to return the pigment to your skin. However, it may take several months to see any results, and there are potential side effects such as lines or streaks in your skin or thinning of your skin.
- Light therapy – The best results for this type of therapy are usually achieved on the face, torso, and limbs. Light therapy works by using narrow bands of ultraviolent light to slowly darken the depigmented parts of your skin.
- Photochemotherapy – This therapy is a combination of light therapy with a medication called psoralen, which makes your skin more sensitive to light. This causes your skin to turn pink, and as it heals, it will gradually become more normal in color. Photochemotherapy can take anywhere from six months to a year before achieving desired results. There can be alarming side effects that accompany this kind of therapy, including blistering, severe sunburn, overdarkening of the skin, itching, and increased risk of skin cancer and cataracts.
- Laser therapy – This is a procedure that most effective on small areas of skin. Laser therapy works by treating the skin with an excimer laser.
- Depigmentation – This kind of therapy aims to create consistency of the skin by removing all of the remaining color pigmentation. If your vitiligo is widespread, this may be a viable option. Depigmentation works by applying a medication that contains monobenzone to the areas of skin that have yet to be affected by vitiligo, gradually lightening them so they will eventually blend in with the discolored areas. This therapy will take at least nine months to be effective. Once the process is complete, the results are permanent.
Vitiligo Surgeries
If medications and therapies have proven to be ineffective, surgery might be an option. Some common procedures for vitiligo include skin grafting, blister grafting, and micropigmentation tattooing. Talk with your doctor to figure out which procedure might be best suited for you.
