I have vitiligo, too

 I'm kind of pissed off about all the crap-talking that Michael Jackson's corpse is getting about his vitiligo--for selfish reasons, in addition to my innate compassion for other human beings.

Selfish reason: Because I have vitiligo, too.

Vitiligo, for the record, is a skin condition that only 3% of the population has. It is the de-pigmenting of your skin. Your body, for reasons that doctors do not yet know of, but speculate has to do with an over-active immune system, attacks your pigmenting cells. This can be drastic--all over a face, up a leg, or like Michael Jackson, practically over an entire body. It happens relatively slowly and can be brought on by instances of stress. Some people are born with it, and some people, like me, develop it in their 20's.

In darker skinned people, it can be very noticeable, and obviously more devastating to an appearance. 

My skin is lighter and in the winter, many people do not notice my vitiligo until I point it out. In the summer when I tan, I think it's pretty noticeable. My vitiligo started on my right hand when I was 23. It started as a few small patches of white one day, each about as big as my thumbnail. It seemed that it was faded, but becoming whiter and whiter with time. I researched it on the internet, and found that there was no cure and not many available, affordable or even successful treatments. The websites I looked at might as well have said "It's going to get worse and you're pretty much screwed."

But I'm here to tell you that's not true. So if you are one of those people with vitiligo, and you seek treatment, stay with me, because I've just started treatment in Jacksonville, FL and I'm going to tell you how it goes so you won't have to spend years wasting time with misinformation.

I now have patches on both my hands and my right ankle, and what looks like two thumb prints on my thighs. I have a very small patch, the size of a pinky fingernail, on my forehead. When I got this patch a few weeks ago, I decided to do some more research. If this was going to get worse, there just had to be something I could do, I thought.

The thing about vitiligo is, the sooner you treat it, the better. This is super important. I wish I had read that several years ago. I also wish my doctor, who I went to 2 years ago, had told me that, instead of saying, "There's no cure and the treatments will probably all be experimental."

That's not true. There are treatments out now--topical, lasers and surgeries--that have been proven to work. It's true, everyone responds differently to different treatments, but that's like saying that there is no good treatment for cancer. That's crap. Tons of people have survived. There is no one cure, but it is treatable. Vitiligo is like that: there is no one cure, but it is treatable.

Vitiligo is obviously not as serious. It isn't life threatening--it just messes with your appearance. Your skin slowly loses pigment in unattractive patches of white. It is not contagious. Doctors speculate that maybe it's hereditary, but no one in my family--not even extended--has ever had vitiligo.

So, that brings me to my treatment.

I went to my dermatologist in Jacksonville, FL last week and was given a shot to suppress my over-active immune system. Obviously, this could possibly increase my risk of getting sick. I was also given a topical ointment, Triamcinolone Acetonide Cream at 0.025% that I apply on all my patches of vitiligo morning and night. I am instructed to get sun on these patches for about 15 to 30 minutes (without sunscreen) three times a week to give the skin a chance to repigment while my cells are under the immune system suppressant. It's a little hard to get sun with all the bad weather this week, but I'm sitting outside after work, and my hands are exposed to a lot of sun on the steering wheel during my commute to and from work. 

In a few weeks or months I will start treatment with an XTRAC laser. This is awesome, because there is only one other laser like this in Ocala in the state of Florida, I hear. So I am darn lucky to live in Jacksonville, FL. This laser also happens to be located on the same street of the building I work in, so the weekly treatment for at least 10 weeks is possible. And yes, I have to pay a co-pay every time. It's not cheap. But at least I have insurance, thank my lucky stars.

It's also not super convenient, because I will have to go in once a week in the mornings to be treated for 30 minutes and have to work late these nights. But I'm willing to do this because I have had this condition for three years, and although my close friends, bless them, say they hardly notice it, it bothers the hell out of me, and it will only get worse if I leave it untreated. 

I'm going to be prescribed protopic and start my XTRAC laser treatments in the next few weeks, after using the t-cream for a while. I'll keep you all posted. Until then, stop dissing MJ for his pigment and if you have vitiligo, keep the faith.