Question: What do you know about vitiligo and what are the symptoms??

Alex Haragan answered on 11 Jun 2018:

Vitiligo is where the pigment producing cells in your skin (melanocytes) are destroyed.
Melanocytes produces the pigment, or colour, of your skin. Pale skinned people have fewer of these cells and less pigment, and therefore look lighter, and darker skinned people have more of these cells.
UV light from the sun increases production of the pigment (called melanin) – which is why you get a tan when you’re in the sun.
When these cells are lost, as in vitiligo, it means that no skin pigment is produced – so you get a very pale or white area of the skin that cannot tan.
This can affect small areas of your skin, or very large areas, and can be patchy and erratic.
There is no real symptom besides the fact you have these pale areas – in every other respect it is just like normal skin..
The only thing I would add is because these areas cannot tan it is extra important to use sun-cream, particularly baby-sun cream, because this forms a barrier from the sun.
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As for the cause – some theorise its a form of auto-immune disorder (when your immune system incorrectly kills them) but the truth is we don’t really know!
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So other than having patchy pale skin (which can affect people of all skin colour) there is nothing harmful about it.