Dandruff shampoo for vitiligo: Why I Said ‘Goodbye’ to Treatments as a Girl with Vitiligo
Why I Said ‘Goodbye’ to Treatments as a Girl with Vitiligo
Treatment
Shawna Simmons Photography
Zoila Holt
Zoila Holt is a lifestyle blogger, student and YouTube junkie…
I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was a little girl with vitiligo, standing in the bathroom in my pink panties, covered in wet blue shampoo from head to toe. Once my mom gave me the okay, I would run around the house to help dry the shampoo on my body. I had so much fun running around all blue – I thought it was hilarious. The “blue” was Selsun Blue, a dandruff shampoo that our family doctor thought would help heal my vitiligo. Little did I know, it was just the start of years of treatments.
Treating My Skin as a Girl with Vitiligo
I started light therapy and cream treatments as a teenager. The light therapy would, in a good way, burn my white patches like a sunburn and they would turn pink. Pink meant life in my skin, which meant pigmentation would return.
It was good news for my skin, but it hurt just like a regular sunburn and I felt ugly looking in the mirror and seeing my burnt body. Brown and white skin was bad enough – now I was pink too.
I didn’t like having to go to these treatments, but to my parents, it wasn’t an option. While they meant well, they would get disappointed in me when I didn’t go to light therapy sessions or would forget to apply the cream. I heard a lot of lectures about the benefits of the treatments, but they couldn’t see how hard it was for me. Going to light therapy a couple times a week was just more opportunities for me to leave the house and be stared at. More than that, the treatments were exhausting. After countless sessions, I would start to see progress and my naturally tanned skin would return. But it wasn’t a permanent solution and after even a short break, the results would fade.
Why I Said ‘Goodbye’ to Treatments
After years of being burnt, embarrassed and frustrated with treatments, I ended up missing a handful of light therapy sessions and the pigmentation on my face reverted back to vitiligo.
It was as if I had wasted years of my life. I felt disheartened, cheated, robbed, hurt, sad, angry, ugly, hopeless and alone. My dermatologist noticed my frustration and tried having a heart-to-heart conversation, but I was angry. As he talked about other options, it suddenly hit me – I was done with treatments.
So much of my life was spent treating my skin because I needed to “get better.” I was raised with the idea that I needed a treatment to help me get better. But the only thing I needed to do was to love my skin the way it was. I decided that it was time to embrace my skin, take care of my mental health and love the girl looking back at me in the mirror. My joy should not be based on the number of light treatments I went to last week or how much of my pigmentation is returning. True happiness comes from loving yourself despite that.
Zoila Holt
Zoila Holt is a lifestyle blogger, student and YouTube junkie who loves to sing. Originally from El Salvador, these days she calls Vancouver home.
Zoila Holt
Distinguish Between Tinea Versicolor and Vitiligo
If you notice light- or dark-colored areas on your skin, you may wonder what’s causing them and how to treat them. Two common causes of skin discoloration are tinea versicolor and vitiligo. Even though these skin conditions may look similar, they have different causes, and you’ll need to try different strategies to get them to clear up.
Jordan Abbott, MD, a dermatologist with Banner Health, explained more about what these conditions look like and how to treat them.
Tinea versicolor (TV), also called pityriasis versicolor, develops when too much yeast grows on your skin. The excessive yeast leads to a rash that looks like round flat patches which can be lighter or darker than the surrounding skin. It most often strikes the chest and back.
Vitiligo is an acquired disorder of depigmentation of the skin.
“Normally your skin has pigment-producing cells called melanocytes. They produce melanin, which gives the skin its color. In vitiligo patches, these pigment-producing cells are absent,” Dr. Abbott said.
Both conditions can appear as light spots on the skin, and they don’t usually have any other symptoms. “If you didn’t see them, you wouldn’t know they were there,” Dr. Abbott said. In rare cases, tinea versicolor can be slightly itchy or dry. Neither condition is contagious, so don’t worry about catching TV or vitiligo if you touch someone who has it. Both can develop in people with any skin color.
How can you tell them apart?
TV and vitiligo usually affect different parts of your body. You’ll usually spot signs of vitiligo on the face, hands, elbows and knees. It’s unusual to see tinea versicolor on the hands or legs. TV is most common on the chest or back.
And the discoloration isn’t the same for both conditions. “While they both can have spots that are lighter than the surrounding skin, the color appears different to a trained eye,” Dr.
Abbott said. TV can be a few shades lighter than the unaffected skin, due to decreased pigment in these spots. With vitiligo, the skin lacks all pigment in the affected areas, so it appears chalk or milk white.
What to know about tinea versicolor
Tinea versicolor is a common fungal infection caused by a yeast called Malassezia, also known as Pityrosporum. This yeast normally grows on your skin and usually doesn’t cause any trouble unless here’s an overgrowth—that’s what causes tinea versicolor.
Heat, humidity and excessive sweating can trigger TV, so you see it more often in tropical climates. People also may develop this condition in the spring when the weather warms up. Oily skin is another risk factor, so it is more common in teens and young adults. And athletes are also at risk because of the sweaty, humid environment underneath their uniforms or workout clothes. To keep tinea versicolor infection from recurring, you should avoid excessive sweating, sun exposure and heat.
Wearing sunscreen or protective clothing and opting for loose-fitting garments made of cotton can help reduce sweating.
How to diagnose and treat tinea versicolor
Your health care provider can usually diagnose tinea versicolor by observation—it looks different than vitiligo and other skin conditions. They might use a tool called a Wood lamp which uses utraviolet light to see the patches more clearly.
If you’re diagnosed with TV, your dermatologist will probably recommend a short course of topical antifungal treatments you apply to your skin or take by mouth to help the rash clear up.
“It may sound funny, but one of the common treatments is to use anti-dandruff shampoo, like selenium sulfide (Selsun Blue) as a body wash in the shower,” Dr. Abbott said. That’s because the same yeast that causes TV may also cause dandruff. “It works best when you lather the product on your skin and allow it to sit for 10 minutes before rinsing.”
Some people who get tinea versicolor repeatedly use dandruff shampoo as body wash regularly to keep it at bay.
Because the yeast that causes TV lives on your skin all the time, flare-ups are common.
What to know about vitiligo
Vitiligo is believed to be an autoimmune disorder where your immune system’s cells attack the melanocytes that produce pigment in your skin. It can be associated with other autoimmune conditions such as thyroid disease and type 1 diabetes. People commonly see it start around age 20. Some medications, such as immunotherapy used to treat certain cancers, can trigger vitiligo.
How to diagnose and treat vitiligo
Like TV, doctors can often diagnose vitiligo by examining your skin. If they need more information, they may take a skin biopsy so the cells can be evaluated in a lab.
If you have vitiligo, your doctor may recommend skin creams, pills or light therapy (phototherapy) for treatment. If the affected areas are smaller (less than 5% to 10% of your skin), you’ll probably try a skin cream first.
If vitiligo is spreading quickly, your doctor may prefer an oral medication that can help slow down or stop the spread.
“With vitiligo, the goal of treatment is initially to stop the progression. After that, the skin can begin to re-pigment,” Dr. Abbott said. Vitiligo can’t be cured, but it can be controlled. Some people use cosmetics to cover up the lighter areas.
The bottom line
Tinea versicolor and vitiligo are two skin conditions that can look similar but have different causes and treatments. If you have light or discolored patches on your skin, your health care provider can figure out what’s behind them and recommend a treatment that can help clear up your skin.
Need help diagnosing or treating symptoms of tinea versicolor or vitiligo?
Schedule an appointment with a dermatologist.
Other useful articles about skin conditions
- Psoriasis and Five Similar-Looking Conditions You May Confuse With It
- Can Your Skin Condition Be Treated with Light Therapy?
- Here’s How to Break the Itchy Cycle of Hives
Dermatology
How to stop the course of vitiligo and what drugs work more effectively?
Vitiligo is considered one of the most mysterious and unexplored dermatological diseases.
It is particularly resistant to treatment, leaves noticeable marks on the body and frightens others. What is vitiligo and what to do if the disease has made itself felt?
Vitiligo: acquired or genetic?
Skin color is determined by four pigments: melanin, carotene, hemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin. Any changes in their production are reflected in our body. Especially noticeable is the failure in the production of melanin. Such malfunctions in the body are referred to as acquired skin dyschromia, although every third case of the disease is genetically acquired.
What is important to know when starting to treat vitiligo?
This is not a contagious disease.
It does not increase the risk of skin cancer.
Does not cause itching and pain and, apart from an aesthetic defect, does not harm health.
How the disease manifests itself
In simple terms, vitiligo is a skin pigmentation disorder that is accompanied by depigmented (white) spots.
Vitiligo is insidious in that it can manifest itself at any age (especially often in women from 10 to 30 years old). Moreover, not only the skin changes color, but also the hair, fat and sweating practically disappear. Often, against the background of vitiligo, solar dermatitis develops, the color of the eye begins to change, melanin is lost on the mucous membranes. The spots on the skin constantly increase in size, begin to grow together with each other.
Diagnosing symptoms is very simple, but starting treatment for vitiligo is the opposite – often the doctor simply does not know which method is best and selects the option by exclusion. Despite the fact that vitiligo spots are almost impossible to confuse with something else, to clarify the diagnosis, the doctor always prescribes examinations for pityriasis versicolor; true, chemical and post-inflammatory leukoderma. It is important to exclude these diseases so as not to aggravate them with improper treatment.
What can cause vitiligo?
Violation of the thyroid gland, adrenal glands, pituitary gland and gonads.
Stress and mental trauma.
Autoimmune causes.
Heredity.
Which method of treatment of vitiligo is more effective: drugs or physiotherapy?
A complete cure for vitiligo is almost impossible. Cosmetologists and dermatologists are constantly improving methods, but it has not yet been possible to bring out the ideal method. Nevertheless, you should not refuse treatment. If you can’t get rid of all the spots on the skin, then at least you can always stop their development. And now we are not talking about the method of tattooing, which removes only the outlines of spots and does not guarantee that they will not grow further.
PUVA therapy
The classic treatment for vitiligo. It includes irradiation of affected areas with UV radiation and taking photosensitizing drugs. It is important that only a doctor can choose the optimal dose of drugs, he also regulates the intensity of the UV lamp radiation.
Provided that you start treatment on time, normal pigmentation will resume after a few sessions.
It can be external and general – foci of depigmentation are treated with creams, injections, drugs are taken orally.
This includes oral copper preparations and electrophoresis. This therapy is prescribed in combination with another to increase the copper content in the body (this is a typical symptom in vitiligo).
Diet therapy
Doctors recommend eating more seafood and vegetables during treatment. Cod liver, lamb, cabbage, apples, rice, tomatoes, oats, corn are especially useful.
Phytotherapy
It is prescribed as an auxiliary element of treatment – taking decoctions and tinctures with echination, for example, increases the number of T-lymphocytes. The result of herbal medicine can be noticeable only after six months.
For vitiligo, complex treatment is considered the most successful, which includes UV irradiation with a machine (physiotherapy), medication, creams and diet.
An important role in any therapy selected by a doctor is played by cosmetic UV protective agents (SPF30 or more) and masking compounds.
How long does it take to treat vitiligo?
All the insidiousness of vitiligo in its individual development in each specific case. Therefore, when prescribing a course of treatment, doctors always warn of unpleasant consequences. For some patients, a few weeks is enough to see results. Some take years to remove just the symptoms.
On average, therapy lasts at least 3-6 months. During this time, you can not only remove the visible signs of the disease, but restore the hormonal background, increase immunity.
At the same time, everyone who encounters an illness should be ready to treat it all his life. As a rule, the consequences of vitiligo remain on the skin forever, and the role of therapy in this case is to prevent the increase in foci and increase the body’s resistance.
causes of occurrence, in which diseases it occurs, diagnosis and methods of treatment
HIV
Fungus
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12 December
Small or large flaky scales in the scalp are called dandruff.
With a significant amount, they crumble on clothes, causing disgust in others. There is an opinion that dandruff is the result of non-compliance with the rules of personal hygiene. However, in most cases, increased peeling of the skin is caused by a disease.
Varieties
The scales may be small and fall off easily. Layers may form that rise above the scalp and flake off when combed. Grayish-white foci of peeling may occur, located not only on the scalp, but also passing to the skin of the face, neck and trunk.
Possible causes
Normally, the upper layer of the skin (epidermis) is systematically renewed. At the same time, dying cells are sloughed off, which happens almost imperceptibly. Determining the condition of the scalp is simple: with light scratching, a small amount of scales remain under the nails. However, when exposed to adverse factors or the development of the disease, the number of dead cells can increase and form clusters. Based on the appearance of the scales, their size and localization, it is possible to roughly establish the causes of skin peeling.
Dandruff is not always a symptom of a disease. In some cases, it is caused by a negative effect on the skin: it is an incorrectly selected shampoo, a disturbed diet, and sudden changes in ambient temperature.
Provoking factors can also be stress, direct exposure to sunlight, the use of aggressive products in perm and hair coloring. In these cases, careful care and exclusion of harmful factors normalize the skin condition, which contributes to the disappearance of dandruff.
Doctors consider dandruff a harbinger of seborrheic dermatitis , which can develop under the influence of a number of factors. With seborrheic dermatitis, the formation of dandruff is caused by pathological processes: disruption of the sebaceous glands, accelerated death of epidermal cells and reproduction of microorganisms.
The scalp contains a large number of sebaceous glands. A change in their function can lead to either insufficient or excessive production of sebum.
Deficiency of fat is caused by an increase in the viscosity of the secretion of the sebaceous glands and the difficulty of its passage through the ducts of the gland.
At the same time, the scalp dries out, there is a feeling of tightness, itching, burning. Hair becomes dry and brittle, their ends are split.
Even if you rarely wash your hair, dandruff does not disappear. These are characteristic signs of dry seborrhea . Lesions with increased peeling are located in greater numbers along the hairline. Scales can occur on the eyebrows, eyelashes, beard and mustache. The color of the scales varies from white to yellow. Seborrheic dermatitis worsens in winter, which is facilitated by significant fluctuations in air temperature and overdrying of the skin. With the progression of the disease, pink spots appear on the skin, covered with white scales.
With oily seborrhea , sebum production increases, and dead cells stick together with fat to form conglomerates. In these clusters, microscopic fungi multiply, which normally live on the scalp in small quantities. By consuming sebum components, fungi secrete substances that irritate the skin, causing inflammation and flaking.
The reproduction of fungi is also facilitated by heat and high humidity. With active combing, crusts form on damaged skin, under which pathogenic bacteria multiply.
Violation of the sebaceous glands contributes to a change in hormonal levels in adolescence, during pregnancy or in postmenopause. Increased production of testosterone, which largely determines the work of the sebaceous glands, causes a greater spread of seborrhea in men. A decrease in the immune status is also accompanied by an increase in morbidity. It has been proven that in HIV-infected patients seborrhea occurs 4-10 times more often than in persons with normal immunity. It is noted that seborrheic dermatitis is activated when the nervous system is damaged. In patients with paralysis, Parkinson’s disease, this disease is characterized by extensive distribution and difficult treatment.
Another possible cause of dandruff is psoriasis . Psoriasis is a systemic disease, which is based on a violation of the immune status.
At the same time, leukocytes, which usually destroy foreign agents, begin to mistakenly attack their own tissues, causing inflammation.
Such a failure can occur after a streptococcal infection, trauma, due to inflammatory bowel disease and dysbacteriosis. Psoriasis usually appears between the ages of 15-45, but it can also occur in very young children as young as 4 months of age.
It has been established that the early onset of the disease is accompanied by a more severe course and leads to damage not only to the skin, but also to the joints, heart, and blood vessels.
In mild forms of psoriasis, only the skin is affected, usually on exposed areas of the body and scalp. Clearly defined bright pink rashes are covered with whitish scales. Small foci of inflammation can merge, forming plaques, also covered with easily audible scales. In summer, rashes become smaller, and sometimes they disappear completely, but pigmentation remains in their place. In the cold season, with a decrease in immunity, stress, the symptoms of psoriasis may reappear.
Diagnosis and examination
If dandruff cannot be overcome by changing the shampoo, it is recommended to find out the causes of its occurrence by contacting a specialist – a dermatologist or trichologist. The doctor determines the size of the scales, examines the skin (discoloration, the presence of plaques, scratches), which makes it possible to make a preliminary diagnosis. In addition to the examination, a biochemical blood test should be performed, changes in the results of which may indicate a violation of the gastrointestinal tract.
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Elevated androgen levels or decreased estrogen levels may also confirm the diagnosis of seborrheic dermatitis.
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For the differential diagnosis of seborrheic dermatitis, a histological examination of scales or biopsies (microsamples) of the skin is performed.
The diagnosis of psoriasis is first made on the basis of visual manifestations of the disease, the so-called psoriatic triad:
– white stearic plaque surface;
– reddish shiny film after desquamation;
– dot protrusion of blood after removal of the film – “blood dew phenomenon”.
Which doctors to contact
A dermatologist deals with skin diseases, and a trichologist deals with diseases of the hair and scalp. If the diagnosis of psoriasis is confirmed, treatment can include
therapist,
endocrinologist, rheumatologist,
gastroenterologist and immunologist.
Treatment
Ways to get rid of dandruff, which is only a symptom of the disease, depend on the diagnosis. With seborrheic dermatitis, the basis of treatment is antifungal agents that are part of shampoos.
Their action is effective if the cause of dermatitis is not hormonal changes.
In some cases, your doctor may prescribe antifungal medications.
Local treatment is supplemented with vitamins, antihistamines and sedatives.
Treatment of psoriasis involves complex therapy using ointments, phototherapy and systemic drugs as prescribed and under the supervision of a physician.
What to do
When dandruff appears, first of all, you should pay attention to hair care products. Shampoo should match the type of hair, and after washing it is advisable to use softening balms, rinses, oils. It is necessary for a while to abandon aggressive means for creating hairstyles, allowing the skin to recover.
It is not recommended to use medicated shampoos immediately. They include drugs that can only be used with a confirmed diagnosis of seborrheic dermatitis.
With severe itching of the scalp and the presence of hard white thickenings at the hair roots, you should check for pediculosis.
Sources:
- Clinical guidelines “Psoriasis”. Developed by: Russian Society of Dermatovenerologists and Cosmetologists.
