Vitiligo

Natural alternative treatment, healing and cure for Vitiligo

No need to travel to an exotic faraway land for an alleged miracle cure

The cure is already in the kitchen

The information in this page about vitiligo, natural medicine, treatment and cure is NOT a sales pitch for any drug, supplement, herbal formula or even an alleged magic potion from an exotic faraway land. We believe that:

Food is always best medicine

Vitiligo is the condition where the skin loses melanin, the pigment that determines skin color. Vitiligo occurs when the cells that produce melanin die or no longer form melanin causing slowly expanding white patches of irregular shapes to appear on the skin. It affects both sexes and all races. Vitiligo usually starts with itching in small areas followed by pigment loss that spreads and becomes larger with time. Because of the itching, an unidentified virus is suspected as the culprit.

There is no cure for Vitiligo in traditional medicine. The goal of all traditional treatments is to stop or slow the progression of pigment loss and attempt to artificially camouflage the affected areas of the skin, either by restoring color (pigment) or destroying the remaining color. Traditional treatments for Vitiligo are expensive and may take from 6 to 18 months.

Topical corticosteroid therapy

Corticosteroids may help return skin color. These drugs include cortisone. Side effects include thinning of the skin (atrophy) and streaks or lines on skin.

Topical psoralen plus ultraviolet A (PUVA)

This involves applying a thin coating of psoralen to the affected patches of skin about 30 minutes before UVA light exposure. Then the patient is exposed to an amount of UVA light that turns the affected area of skin pink. Side effects include severe sunburn and blistering and too much re-pigmentation or darkening of the treated patches.

De-pigmentation

De-pigmentation involves fading the rest of the skin on the body to match the already-white areas. In this procedure, the drug monobenzone (Benoquin) is applied twice a day to the pigmented areas of skin until they match the already de-pigmented areas. The side effect of de-pigmentation is redness and swelling of the skin, itching, dry skin or abnormal darkening of the membrane that covers the white of the eyes. De-pigmentation is permanent and cannot be reversed. In addition, de-pigmentation patients will always be extremely sensitive to sunlight.

Surgical therapies (Autologous skin grafts or "minipunch" skin transfer)

A patient's own tissues is removed from one area of body and attached to another. Complications of this procedure include developing scarring, a cobblestone appearance, spotty pigmentation.

Blister grafting

Blisters are created on pigmented skin by using suction. The tops of the blisters are then cut out and transplanted to a de-pigmented skin area where a blister of equal size has been created and removed. The risks include the development of a cobblestone appearance, scarring and lack of re-pigmentation.

Vitiligo is an extreme YIN illness (itching and spreading are both YIN characteristics). It is most likely triggered by a virus (infection of any type is also yin). Another YIN characteristic of Vitiligo is that it affects the skin, the outermost organ in the body.

Food is best medicine. Vitiligo is slowly curable on the right diet. The progress of the illness is usually halted within a few weeks of following the right diet. Because the right diet cleanses the body of any infection, if vitiligo is indeed triggered by a virus, this virus will also be eliminated. The affected areas begin to be re-pigmented partially or completely within a few weeks of following the right diet. This depends on the illness severity and the time it first appeared.

Most people have come to believe that macrobiotics means eating exotic Japanese foods. This is a misconception. To cure Vitiligo you do not have to eat Japanese foods. You have to first understand the principles of natural balance explained in macrobiotics in order to understand what has led you to develop Vitiligo. Then, macrobiotic principles will help you determine what foods you will have to eat and what foods you have to avoid in order to cure Vitiligo. Read If macrobiotics means eating locally grown foods, why are we eating Japanese foods?

It is true that food is best medicine for Vitiligo. But some foods help cure Vitiligo and some make it worse. The food pyramid is only a general guideline and does not provide any specific information in the natural treatment of Vitiligo.

Food is best medicine. With a carefully designed diet plan for Vitiligo, there is no need for vitamin and mineral supplements. Some vitamin and mineral supplements can have adverse side effects on a Vitiligo patient when taken randomly or in large doses. We recommend against taking any vitamin and mineral supplements for any Vitiligo patient until completely cured. As mentioned earlier, Vitiligo is an extreme YIN illness. Vitamin C, which is considered a healthy supplement, is also a YIN vitamin. That is why vitamin C will actually exacerbate the condition of a Vitiligo patient and help spread it faster. And beware of alleged miracle cures in far away lands.

Are you skeptical of this treatment and cure for vitiligo? This is natural, but please read: back to the roots.

This is not a sales pitch for an expensive herbal concoction or an exotic supplement

Principles explained above are the laws of nature, and illness is simply the cumulative result of violating these laws. Even Hippocrates said: Thy food shall be thy remedy. It is also mentioned in the Chinese book of internal medicine: What can not be cured with medicine, can only be cured with food. Food really is your best medicine if the illness is Vitiligo or almost anything else.

If you decide to treat Vitiligo with the right diet, you can order a consultation with us from the top of this page. We can help by providing an appropriate diet plan, and you would not be alone traveling this road! Read about what many famous doctors said about Food is Best Medicine. And keep in mind that we offer seminars worldwide about nutrition, the art of health and macrobiotics.

It is beneficial when you are following a diet for curing Vitiligo to read about the healing crisis. You can also find more answers and read more about Vitiligo and other illnesses and food as medicine in Frequently Asked Questions.

In addition to changing your eating habits, take some time to relax, meditate or re-charge the batteries, and read what others have discovered about this wondrous world around us.

If you want to read more about health, alternative and natural medicine, take a look at the list of suggested readings.