The Two Types of Vitiligo

Vitilgo causes loss of color, and this infamous skin disease has two types—segmental and non-segmental vitiligo.

Dermatologists, in laymen’s term may refer to this skin problem as loss of pigment” or “depigmentation.” People who suffer from vitiligo can experience loss of pigment in the body including the skin, hair (scalp, eyelash, beard, and eyebrow), insides of the mouth, and genitals. The affected skin lightens gradually until it reaches complete whiteness. Many people, aside from the abnormal lightening of the skin do not feel any other kind of symptoms; they apparently feel healthy.

When you are starting to get hit by the disease, it is important to understand the differences between the types of vitiligo to set your expectations for the treatment. Some skin specialist tells their patient that vitiligo is incurable so they are left with no choice but to deal with it. In fact, there are emerging skin sciences that can aid vitiligo treatment nowadays.

In many, but not all cases, vitiligo slowly progress over time. However, there is no way to tell whether your vitiligo will progress or not. It is a slow condition that some patients could notice that there are duration that there are no patches developing, and then patches will just continue appearing years later.

As what we mentioned above, there are two types of vitiligo that doctors recognize. The segmental vitiligo is also called as unilateral vitiligo; and non-segmental vitiligo that is also referred bilateral vitiligo, vitiligo vulgaris, or generalized vitiligo.

Segmental Vitiligo

Segmental Vitiligo

It is called segmental when a person who develops white patches on the skin develops it in a few limited areas of the body. It is not as common as the non-segmental vitiligo and often begins in early age.

Non-Segmental Vitiligo

Non-Segmental Vitiligo

The non-segmental or generalized vitiligo is the most common type of vitiligo. The white patches appear on both sides of the body such as both hands of both knees. The depigmentation process often begins hands, eyebrows, wrists, fingertips, around the eyes or mouth, or on the feet as it expands and grow more noticeable, covering a larger area of the skin.

Vitiligo Subtypes

Acral or Acrofacial Vitiligo

Acral or Acrofacial Vitiligo

This occurs when you lose the pigments on your extremities such the fingers and toes. The spots can also appear on your face, around your eyes, the lips, genitals, and the skin around the anus.

Focal Vitiligo

Focal Vitiligo

This is the type of vitiligo wherein the patches appear in a few isolated areas of the body without any discernable pattern.

Mucosal Vitiligo

Mucosal Vitiligo

When the mucous membrane of your mouth and the genitals are starting to have white patches, it is called mucosal vitiligo.

Vitiligo Universalis

Vitiligo Universalis

As the name suggests, this is a type of vitiligo that completely removes the pigment out of the body though this is a very rare case. This was reported to be the type of vitiligo Michael Jackson suffered from.

Multichrome Vitiligo

Multichrome Vitiligo

This is a vitiligo subtype that shows different degrees of depigmentation on the skin. It is more noticeable for people who have darker skin.

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5 comments:

Unknown said...

Vitiligo is not a matter of getting panicked, most important thing about Vitiligo is, the patient who gets infected needs to accept that he has Vitiligo. Celebrities like Michael Jackson, Amitabh Bachchan etc suffered with Vitiligo. Homeopathy can help to treat vitiligo effectively, read more on Homeopathy treatment for curing Vitiligo.

Awais Irshad said...

It’s great news that there might be a cure through black pepper finally. I have waited so many year to hear some progress for a cure for vitiligo.

Cure Herbals said...

There are a number of therapies for Vitiligo Natural Treatment. But unfortunately not all of these therapies are reliable. Rather these therapies leave some side effects. These side effects might be major and these might be minor. There might be headaches and pains.

Cure Herbals said...

Surgical, medical, allopathic, homeopathic and Vitiligo Natural Treatments are available for recovery of vitiligo. Natural Treatments are famous in this regard. Different anti vitiligo oils are available in market for vitiligo recovery and cure naturally.

Natural Herbs Clinic said...

Aka Anacardium occidentale, cashew is one of the best  Vitiligo Herbal Treatment  symptoms. It is due to the oil extracted from cashew seeds.

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