Are there successful vitiligo treatments? Yes, there are but “there are currently no treatments for vitiligo that effectively promote complete repigmentation with long-lasting effects while preventing recurrence.” 

Vitiligo is caused by 2 main things: a trigger event and the autoimmune response to that event. 

• The trigger event induces a stress response in the skin and body. Such trigger events are known to be:
  • sunshine exposure
  • skin cuts and abrasions
  • phenolic chemicals exposure
  • unknown trigger events
• The autoimmune system responds to the stressful trigger event by attacking the cells that create pigment.

The current successful treatments for vitiligo do not deal with the underlying factors that cause vitiligo, these treatments address the symptoms of vitiligo, skin depigmentation. Without intervention of some kind, the patches of depigmented skin generally expand and spread. Over time a person can lose all pigment. Current vitiligo treatments include:

Topical treatments for vitiligo include:

• corticosteroids, calcineurin inhibitors, and vitamin D analogues

Phototherapy treatments for vitiligo include:

• narrowband UVB (NB-UVB)
• psoralen
• UVA (PUVA)

Topical treatments for vitiligo

• corticosteroids, calcineurin inhibitors, and vitamin D analogues
• Topical prostaglandin analogues
• Immunosuppressive drugs like Elidel

Oral and systemic treatments

• Oral corticosteroids
• Minocycline, an antibiotic
• Oral statins
• Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors
• Afamelanotide

Oral vitamins and supplements:

• Vitamin B12
• folic acid
• vitamin C
  vitamin E
• L-phenylalanine
• khellin
• polypodium leucotomos
• Ginkgo biloba
• alpha lipoic acid 
• zinc

Procedural treatments for vitiligo

• CO 2 lasers
• laser-assisted dermabrasion
• autologous punch
• suction blister grafts
• split thickness grafts
• needling

The vitiligo treatments that almost worked for me:

I was introduced to several successful vitiligo treatments by two dermatologists for my vitiligo. The treatments I was prescribed was Narrow Band UVB Phototherapy for my vitiligo along with Elidel. UVB phototherapy is a standard treatment for many skin ailments such as vitiligo, psoriasis and eczema. Repigmentation did happen for me. The treatment worked, and worked fairly quickly. It took 6 months for me to realize that problem with this treatment. 

Initial trips to the doctors office for treatments were very quick. A few mins, in and out. But the treatment needs to be longer and longer each week and it kinda snow balled pretty quickly. After 9 months, treatments of phototherapy were taking 1.5 hours 3 times a week when I included drive time. It was cutting into my work and weekend schedule. It was also cost me and my insurance quite a bit of money. I was paying about $300-$400 per month for these treatments. My insurance? About 5 times that amount. 

So between the time and the money, I had to evaluate whether the progress I had seen was enough to keep going and would it be enough to make vitiligo go away permanently? 

I got a second opinion to consider my options. The second dermatologist I went to was incredible. He wanted to know all my questions up front. Gave me lots of time to ask any type of question, my concerns about side-effects, my curiosity about the function of certain drugs and then answered all my concerns with commanding authority. He explained what the scientific community knows about vitiligo – it’s an autoimmune disorder, it’s progressive and there is no cure. I already knew these things but I didn’t know about the side effects of the treatments. The treatments then, and now all have side-effects with long term use, and for some treatments with short-term use. For Elidel, The FDA required the drug manufacturer to place a black label on elidel because of the side effects that warned people of the risk. My first doctor did not warn me about these risks. The second doctor recommended I make an informed choice about long term use of medical treatments for vitiligo. He did not recommend further treatments for vitiligo because of the long term use side-effects. I decided to go another way, because of the time and money investment and the risks associated with long term use, which would be required for my case. 

While many dermatologists online and during office visits downplay the rates of side-effects, the reality is that long-term use studies related to vitiligo treatments are not available. 

Phototherapy side-effects include:

• Melanoma – Cancer
• Skin aging
• Melanoma
• Headaches and nausea (with PUVA treatment)
• Sunburn
• Cataracts from insufficient eye wear during treatment

The Problem With Vitiligo Treatments

Hmmm. Let’s consider this for a minute. You have a skin condition, rooted in a faulty immune system response to stress and the medical treatments for vitiligo only go skin deep. They don’t stop vitiligo from coming back at anytime, anywhere on the body. Additionally all these treatments have side-effects, including cancer.

For Elidel the second treatment prescribed for my vitiligo, here is what the label of the drug reports, as found on the FDA.gov website:

WARNING

Long-term Safety of Topical Calcineurin Inhibitors (Elidel) Has Not Been Established

Although a causal relationship has not been established, rare cases of malignancy (e.g., skin and lymphoma) have been reported in patients treated with topical calcineurin inhibitors, including ELIDEL Cream.

Therefore:

Continuous long-term use of topical calcineurin inhibitors, including ELIDEL Cream, in any age group should be avoided, and application limited to areas of involvement with atopic dermatitis.

ELIDEL Cream is not indicated for use in children less than 2 years of age.

…ELIDEL Cream should not be used in immunocompromised adults and children

…The safety of ELIDEL Cream has not been established beyond one year of non-continuous use.

What is the most important information a patient should know about ELIDEL Cream?

The safety of using ELIDEL Cream for a long period of time is not known. A very small number of people who have used ELIDEL Cream have had cancer (for example, skin or lymphoma). However, a link with ELIDEL Cream use has not been shown.

Because of this concern:

A patient should not use ELIDEL Cream continuously for a long time.

ELIDEL Cream should be used only on areas of skin that have eczema.

ELIDEL Cream is not for use on a child under 2 years old.

I’d like to highlight one key point:

• …ELIDEL Cream should not be used in immunocompromised adults and children

If you have vitiligo, your immune system is not working right. Your immune system is behaving in a compromising manner by killing healthy cells in your skin that produce pigment. And Elidel was prescribed for vitiligo, without understanding the core pharmacological function, as made perfectly clear on the label, and for a chronic skin condition, a skin condition that will likely return post-treatment for many people.

With an increased chance of deadly disease like cancer and you can have some of your pigment back temporarily.

That does not appeal to me anymore. Also, the idea that the treatment sessions for Narrow Band UVB Phototherapy for vitiligo are short is false. They are short in the beginning. As the treatment progresses as it must, the sessions get longer. I was at the point where I was getting treatments 3 times a week and sessions we lasting 50 minuets per session. 4 hours out of my week for a more normal skin pigment and an increased chance of getting skin cancer.

How do we define success when it comes to vitiligo treatments. Normal skin pigmentation? Is that it? If the answer is yes, normal skin pigment is all we are after regardless of the side effects, then there are successful vitiligo treatments through the medical system.

I think we ought to ask ourselves about the price of being normal or beautiful. Are we willing accept a potentially shorter life in order to have a standardized skin tone? I am not willing.

More cancer risk? Two treatments were prescribed that increased my risk of cancer. No warnings. They just sold me. Over the course of those months in treatment I cost my insurance company tens of thousands of dollars. What if I get cancer 20-30 years from now? How much will that cost an insurance company? Is this a wise course of action?

You get treatment for a disease that is not at all life threatening and your chance of getting a deadly disease increases.

What is normal skin pigmentation worth? And can we get rid of vitiligo without deadly treatments?

Is there another way? Yes there is. 

A holistic approached to chronic disease more and more became the obvious best route for me to deal with vitiligo. Vitiligo represents a very serious problem in the body that is progressive. With vitiligo The immune system is malfunctioning, attacking healthy cells. It’s generally progressive in nature, so it keeps spreading. And, there is a good chance that vitiligo will be accompanied by another autoimmune disease. How good? A 25% percent chance. 1 in 4 people with vitiligo will develop another autoimmune disease. Multiple autoimmune disorders. 

Not medical vitiligo treatment deals with the potential for multiple autoimmune disorders. 

So how do we approach vitiligo in the context of our lives, our dreams and our health, long term? What’s a sustainable approach to taking care of our whole self to reverse vitiligo naturally? 

The first place began was to consider how I dealt with stress. I looked to understand the sources of my own stress such as my emotions, choices at work, and dietary choices, daily habits, life goals, spiritual life and social inputs.

Here is what I found: a holistic approach to life that incorporates maximum health, purpose and reality about where we are now, can make vitiligo vanish from our worries & vanish from my skin.

The odd thing is that a successful vitiligo treatment is not about vitiligo, it’s about your life and your health. What do you want? How do you want to deal with stress as it shows up? Do you look to the root causes? Do you consider the long-term? Do you think about side-effects?

Successful vitiligo treatment for me has 0 side-effects. A holistic approach is the only approach that actually deals with the underlying issues fully.

I explain more about my own approach and how it can help you on my webinar. You can sign up to watch it here:

“THE 5 STEPS TO STOP HIDING AND START HEALING VITILIGO!”

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