One of the unfortunate facts about re-pigmenting Vitiligo patches is that one normally needs a few melanocytes to be present for “healing” or repigmenting to begin. The last remaining melanocytes are typically gathered in the hair follicles on our bodies and we have very few on on our hands, feet, elbows and knees.
Areas such as the face, chest, arms and legs where most of us have lots of hair follicles tend to repigment first regardless of the treatment type, whether it be a corticosteroid such as Protopic or Elidel or UVB Narrow Band. Small spots tend to start around hair follicles and over time during treatment, the spots get larger and larger and if all goes well they will begin to overlap and the patches fill in. Some folks call this freckling and those with a sense of humor sometimes laugh and call it frecklage!
There are some people who do have success repigmenting their hands or feet and to be honest, I don’t know why that happens. I do know that if the spots are small that some repigmenting occurs at the edges of a lesion and overtime the spot may fill in.
I’d be interested in hearing about your experience, perhaps you could comment below.
.jpg)
