What is the Treatment for Vitiligo?

The localized vitiligo type or segmental vitiligo type can use the external drugs such as the psoralen, glucocorticoid, chlormethine, or the patients can choose the autologous epidermal grafting, localized phototherapy, or chemical therapy, narrow band wave UV ray therapy, excimer laser therapy, excimer light therapy, traditional Chinese medicine.

What should the vitiligo should be cautious during the treatment?

1. The patient should have a regular follow-up, and maintain a continuous treatment. Generally the patient’s treatment time should not less than three months.

2. Avoid external injury or sunburn, especially for the vitiligo on developing stage.

3. Topical glucocorticoid can be used for the patient’s leukoplakia area less than 10% of body surface area. When the leukoplakia area is more than 90% of body surface area, patients can consider about decolorization treatment.

4. It may helpful to replenish some of the vitamin B, vitamin E, folic acid, zinc.

For the treatment would be very tough for some patients with this disease a long time.

Generally speaking, when the onset time is shorter, the therapeutic effect would be more obvious. But if the onset time is longer, it would be hard for vitiligo patient to be cured. For those patients who have suffered from this disease many years, their melanin has been completely damaged on the white skin area. And the recovery process would only reply on the inactive non-function melancytes multiplying. The treatment process would be very tough, even non-effective. So the early treatment is very important factor.

The size also is one of the factors can determine the cure duration. The therapeutic effect would be more obvious for the small vitiligo, It would take about three to fifth month to get cured for the white patches size is as the palm or coin. For some patients their vitiligo is distributed on the whole body, and the size is quite large. It would take a big longer time to get cured. Some times it needs two to four years. However the recovery process is depended by many different factors, such as the regular follow up, take medicine timely, and internal immunity function, environment etc.

Apart from that the level of efficacy for vitiligo followed by face, head, neck, back, chest, iliac, waist and abdomen, limbs and mucosal sites. It would be more easily to be cured for the facial white patches. It has a low cure rate for the hands and feet, mucous site.

How long we can see the therapeutic effect after the treatment?

The vitiligo is not an incurable disease, there are many therapeutic methods that patients can use, but the treatment process is longer, so the vitiligo patients should be patience to continue the treatment. The patients must not give up the treatment after one week to one month treatment. The therapeutic also related to the vitiligo site, therapeutic methods, and if the patient is cooperate with the doctor. Thus the most vitiligo patients can be get cured as long as they are patience, and confident to the specialist.