This is, of course, yet another post about vitiligo. I’ve been getting lots and lots of hits on the blog, so thought I’d share the latest updates. Warning: this is a very long post.
So the progress:
1) My face has completely repigmented. There are a couple little section that are still paler, but it looks like normal, uneneven skin tone rather than anything else. I’m still using Protopic on my face, though I’m down to once a day, rather than twice.
2) My wrists and inner forearms seem to be getting better, though this could be because I’m losing my tan. I noticed a few weeks ago that the fleshy pad at the base of the hand (what is that thing called, anyway) is losing its color right at that section where you go from the palm color to your regular color. Sorry, that was very awkwardly stated, but I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s worse on my left hand than on my right, but the right is starting to go a little too.
3) I’m getting a little bit more on my fingers, right around the nail. On my hands, this started around my thumbs, and now is on my fore and middle fingers as well. It’s not major; you can barely see it, so it doesn’t really bother me that much. I have a couple of small spots on the back of my hands too–and every time I see another one, I freak–but at this stage, they’re the size of a pin head. I have the same thing around some toes. It’s not super noticeable unless you look. I haven’t been using Protopic either on my fingers or toes.
4) My shins aren’t getting any better. I think they’re getting worse. Not quickly, but they are.
5) My underarms, well, I think there’s something going on there. It’s always been worse on my left side; my right side was trying to play catch up for a while, but it’s almost completely gone on the right. On the left, the spots are still there, but it seems to me that they’re not quite as white.
6) Ahem, there. Now this is really interesting, because while the spots are definitely there, they are smaller. A couple of months ago, it seemed to be spreading like wildfire, with large swaths obviously in the process of depigmenting. Now, there are two or three spots. They are smaller than they were before, and the depigmenting spots have stopped depigmenting. So what’s the interesting part, you ask? Simply this: I have not done a darn thing for those spots: No Protopic ever.
7) There are also a couple of other areas that I haven’t been Protopic-ing: One small round area on my shoulder; a dime-sized area smack in the middle of my chest, another dime-sized bit high up on my ribs; and a little section at the base of the spine. Interestingly, the rib one is getting progressively smaller. Actually, I just looked, and it’s now the size of a pencil eraser.
Ultimately, I think Protopic is really working–it started working on my face almost immediately once I started getting some sun. But obviously there’s some other stuff going on too. I think the supplements are helping–a lot. And I wonder about some other stuff, which are all listed below. I know that my posting some of these things will probably make you doubt my credibility. Not that I should be relied on as being credible in any case, because I’m just one person and so this is all anecdotal. But for a lot of this, I figure, what’s the harm in trying it. So here they are, in no order of importance:
1) I’ve abandoned commercial deodorant in favor of either this or of my own mixture of cornstarch, baking soda, and arrowroot powder (with some rose absolute thrown in to make it smell good). Both work surprisingly well.
2) I’ve replaced lotion with a straight coconut oil and CoEnzyme q10 mix. If you google coconut oil, you’ll get all sorts of stuff about how great it is for you. I take a lot of this with a grain of salt, but I will say that my skin looks better than it has for years. The q10 is for the oxidative stress theory, and I think that’s working too.
3) Regular kefir drinking. Kefir is supposed to be incredibly wonderful for you; among other things it is claimed to be an immunomodulator. Who knows if all this is true, but it’s like drinking yogurt, and can’t hurt.
4) I’m really trying to eliminate processed foods as much as possible. We’ve never been big fast food eaters, but we often rely on Trader Joe’s frozen stuff. I’m trying to cook more, using whole ingredients, limiting white flour, etc. I’m also going the organic, no hormone food route.
5) I’m also cooking with coconut oil these days instead of olive. This is kind of an experiment here. As I said before, it you google coconut oil, you’ll get all these pages about why it’s good for you, how people never had heart disease when they used it, and blah blah blah. There are even people who take coconut oil by the tablespoon plain, which is, in my book anyway, just another reason to take it all with a grain of salt. However, there were a few things I found really interesting. First, unsaturated oils oxidize at high cooking temperatures, creating free radicals, which then contribute to oxidative stress. Second, coconut oil is high in Omega 6 fatty acids, which my naturopath has me on fish oil for anyway. And third, coconut oil appears to have antimicrobial effects, and is claimed to have antiviral effects too (though I was unable to find objective research–i.e., not on a coconut oil site–to back it up). Including cytomegalovirus. Stay with me here. A while ago, I found (and promtly forgot to bookmark) a very obscure research paper that said that all subjects were treated for cytomegalovirus and had their vitiligo disappear. There MAY be a causative link between cytomegalovirus (search cytomegalovirus and vitiligo at pubmed.com). So I figure it can’t hurt.
6) I’ve discovered how much I like juice fasting. But I really wish that there were some true studies about whether it’s a healthy thing to do. If you search juice fasting online, you get all sorts of weirdos, fanatics, pseudo doctors, and people who just plain want to believe that it does something and thus get a placebo effect. If you believe all you read, juice fasting will cure everything and solve that nagging question of world peace to boot. I don’t know. But at the risk of devolving into the worst of alternative quackery, I have to add this. I like the way juice fasting makes me feel.
It hasn’t done a darn thing for the vitiligo as far as I can tell, and I don’t know whether the “detoxifying” stuff is valid, whether the “retracing” thing is for real, or the “healing crisis” bit is true or any of the rest of it. However, I can tell you how I feel about it and you can make up your own mind. I do feel “detoxified” after I’ve done it. Of course, one goes for days without eating solid food, so that can be part of it. The first time I did it (6 days), I felt like crap for three days, slept 15 hours a day, and emerged feeling really great. The second time (3 days) and third time (5 days), I slept normally and felt fine. In all cases, I ended the fast when I got to the point where I felt like I needed to eat real food again, and felt energized at the end. This is, I know, purely subjective and can be contributed to eating again as well as to a host of other things. But I confess: I like it.
This last fast, I was very, very itchy, got a whole bunch of rashes, hivey looking things, and pimples that all appeared and disappeared within the space of less than six hours. I can’t explain this because the rashy stuff wasn’t going on before. I should, however, add that ever since I started using Protopic, I’ve been itchy all over–and not just in the places that I apply the medication. Of course, being me, I worry that I have chronic urticaria now, psoriasis, AND eczema concurrently, and also that by this time next year, I will be completely vitiligoed (apparently, vitiligo can make some people itch). But I think it’s the Protopic because I didn’t use it at all for the week we were in Oregon and I stopped itching altogether. (If there is anyone else who has experienced this, I would love to hear from you.)
