What Is a Skin Fade?

Vitiligo is the medical name for what happens when your skin fades in color. It causes your skin to fade as it loses melanin, a pigment which is responsible for your skin color. The cells that manufacture melanin perish and the skin in the affected region of your body begins to fade. Vitiligo occurs in all races of people and both sexes, beginning as a small area and gradually growing.

Theories/Speculation

• The actual reason that causes the destruction of melanin in particular cells is not fully understood. Theories have been put forth that focus on various factors being responsible for the pigment's demise. One is that vitiligo is a hereditary disease, since there is some evidence of it being prominent in some families. Other scientists think that it could be connected to an immune system problem, while others feel that this skin fading condition is precipitated by an event such as a bad sunburn or an emotional trauma.

Effects

• The obvious symptom of vitiligo is the whitish patches that occur on certain parts of the body. Any place on the body can be affected by this disease but it most often starts where skin is exposed to sunlight; hands, arms, face, and lips are common spots. Most cases of vitiligo occur when a person is between 20 and 30 years old but it has been known to commence at any age. The hair on the scalp as well as eyebrows and eyelashes can become prematurely gray and even the inside of your mouth can fade in color.

Significance

• When your skin fades through the effects of vitiligo, it is a painless process, but the psychological aspects of the condition can be profound. If it occurs on readily visible places on your body such as the face, it can result in great embarrassment, which can then turn into depression as you fret about your appearance. It is particularly tough on younger individuals as they grow up.

Prevention/Solution

• There are medical options that attempt to either restore the pigment that vitiligo destroys or to actually get rid of the remaining color in the skin so that the person has the same tone throughout the body. Corticosteroid therapy is one method where creams are used to try to bring the color back to your skin. Photochemotherapy uses artificial ultraviolet light to change the color of the faded areas, but this treatment causes sunburns and blistering. A process known as depigmentation will be used if more than half your body has skin that has faded. It employs a drug that is applied to your remaining normal skin in an effort to make it match the faded skin.

Considerations

• There are surgical treatments for vitiligo. One is autologous skin grafting, a type that uses your own skin. It is taken from unaffected areas of your body and attached to spots where the skin fades. Blister grafting involves forming blisters on normal skin and then removing the tops and transplanting them to faded areas. However, scarring is a possible side effect of these operations.