Symptoms of Vitiligo
Symptoms of Vitiligo are numerous and include changes in your skin, your bodily hair, your eyes, and the inside of your mouth. Vitiligo is a condition that is commonly characterized by the graying of bodily hair including your eyebrows, eyelashes, and the hair on your head. If you are a male, your beard and mustache may also change colors and exhibit signs of early aging.
Symptoms of Vitiligo also include changes in your skin that are directly caused by a process called de-pigmentation; your skin will lose its natural coloring and you might develop white, milk-like colored skin patches on your body.Additional Vitiligo symptoms include the change of the color of the tissues that make up your mucous membranes too. This means that the interior of your mouth may endure color changes. Finally, in some people that suffer from the condition identified as Vitiligo and its symptoms, the individual actually endures color changes within the eye in the area of the retina. This condition seems to have some genetic factors which increase one’s chances of developing Vitiligo, and some researchers are drawing a link between autoimmune deficiencies and the onset of this condition. Sometimes trauma to your skin can also set off the disorder; intense sunburn, which is damaging to the skin, has brought on the early Vitiligo symptoms in some individuals.
This condition is caused by the sudden, unexplained loss of melanin; a special type of pigment in your skin that maintains the color of your skin. If you are a light skinned or fair skinned person you have little melanin in your skin and if you are a dark skinned individual you have more melanin in your skin. Melanin also has a direct affect on the pigmentation of your eyes and hair too. Vitiligo involves the destruction of melanin cells: as the melanin cells are gradually destroyed evidence of their destruction presents itself in Vitiligo symptoms: skin, eye, tissue, and hair color alterations.
Vitiligo can happen to anyone at anytime, but the condition is far more identifiable in individuals that initially have a lot of melanin in their skin: the color changes are far more recognizable. Since this condition can severely alter your appearance, another symptom of Vitiligo involves the secondary psychological symptoms that can affect the individual. This condition can have a direct and deep effect on one’s self-esteem and it may even cause issues with social anxiety.