What Is Hypopigmentation?

Introduction

Skin conditions vary, and none of them is considered easy or not annoying or good-looking. Plus, dealing with them could be quite a challenge for everyone because it’s never easy to have the slightest negative thing affecting your look. Not to mention that treatments could require a lot of patience and commitment from the patient until the results start showing up. Some skin conditions can be very painful and hard to treat, others won’t cause you any amount of discomfort or pain, but it would mainly affect your look negatively. If you have any kind of skin problems and issues, you must keep in mind that you have to educate yourself and know exactly what’s going on with you so you won’t cause yourself any harm by doing the wrong kind of treatment or stimulating this issue to get worse by certain actions or activities that you may do in your daily life without noticing the harmful effects you’re bringing to yourself. Therefore, you must visit your dermatologist as soon as you notice anything weird happening with your skin and always keep him updated. Speaking of skin conditions, have you ever heard of hypopigmentation? It’s a very annoying issue that you might face and it has to do with your skin color. To learn all about the basic ins and outs of it, stick with me for this five-minute read, and let’s decode it together.

‍

What Is Hypopigmentation?

To fully understand the answer to this question, you first need to know what melanin is. Melanin is a protein that is produced by pigment cells called melanocytes. This protein gives skin, hair, and eyes their unique color. It gets affected by a number of factors like exposure to the sun for instance. Now as for hypopigmentation, it’s a skin condition where melanocytes aren’t producing enough melanin which therefore causes the skin to get paler and paler over time. But it’s not always the melanin’s fault, sometimes it happens because you don’t have enough melanocytes so let’s cut the melanin some slack here ok? This skin condition can appear as pale patches in different sizes and shapes in different places all over the body, or it can affect the body as a whole. But hold on just a minute there, what can possibly cause such a thing to my looks?!

‍

What Causes Hypopigmentation?

The main problem with the low melanin production can be linked to either a genetic problem that stimulates this problem and makes it even worse overtime sometimes, or to a skin injury, burn, scars, or trauma that happened and this low production of melanin is just the skin’s natural reaction to the whole thing. Other causes are blisters, infections, cosmetic skin procedures that went wrong because the doctor at the clinic was going through her tenth breakup and was questioning every single decision she made throughout her entire life while performing the procedure, laser treatments, chemical peels, or you can simply be born with this condition sometimes and sticks with you forever until you do something about it. You might be wondering right now if this condition has any types, well it does. Let’s take a quick look at them.

‍

Types Of Hypopigmentation?

Hypopigmentation has a bunch of different types that vary in reason and effects. How about we mention a few?
‍

● Albinism:

This skin issue is mainly inherited and its main cause is a disorder in the genes. Albinism causes the skin to be extremely white, almost completely colorless. It also turns the hair white and turns the eye blue. And unfortunately, it can not be cured. Well not yet at least. People with albinism have the potential of developing skin cancer so if you have this issue you should be very careful when it comes to sun exposure. Sunscreen should always be with you and you should apply the needed amount of it before going out. And I hate to be the one that has to say this to you but, no tanning for you. Unfortunately, your chances of getting vision problems are high as well so in your case protecting your eyes from sun rays with sunglasses would be a good idea, a hat would be great as well. I know that it’s annoying having to do all of these things but it’s for your own good and well-being. Totally worth the trouble.
‍

● Vitiligo:

This type appears as patches in different shapes and sizes that spread throughout different places of the body. Nobody knows the main cause of this case. Although, some researchers believe that the main cause of this case is an autoimmune disease that causes harm and damage to the melanocytes leading to a decrease in melanin production in certain places of the body.
‍

● Pityriasis Alba:

It mostly happens with children and it’s basically the white leftovers from scaly or red skin patches. There’s no known cause for this case but most people link it to eczema. You don’t really have to worry about it that much though because it heals and disappears over time on its own.

Now after I’ve freaked you out with the types and everything else I said about this skin issue, let me calm you down and talk about the treatments before you lose your mind because if you do, my god, I’m totally getting fired.

‍

Treatments For Hypopigmentation

Unless it causes you other health issues, you don’t really have to treat it. Generally speaking, the possible options for hypopigmentation treatments rely on the causes of your specific hypopigmentation case. Your options are mainly surgical skin grafting, medications, laser treatments, or home remedies.
‍

● Surgical Skin Grafting:

If you ask me, surgical skin grafting isn’t that much recommended for this matter but your dermatologist should have the final say on this so consult him/her before thinking about doing such a thing.
‍

● Medicines:

For this part, there are a bunch of topical treatments that can be a good option to deal with hypopigmentation such as topical steroids, you can get them as an ointment or a cream. Their effects include either restoring your skin’s melanin even if it was for a little bit or preventing the discoloration from spreading more and more on the rest of your body. You can only use topical steroids if your body has less than 10% of non-segmental hypopigmentation and if you are pretty aware of the side effects they cause and of course if you are not pregnant. In the case of pregnancy, topical steroids are never an option. But eventually, your doctor will have the final decision on the matter. If he/she approves, you are good to go.
‍

● Laser Treatments:

Some laser treatments had proven to be very effective in bringing back the production of melanin to localized hypopigmented areas such as the 308-nm excimer laser along with the 1550-nm Fraxel laser. They’ve shown some pretty good results over time so laser treatment is definitely an option out there for all of you.
‍

● Home Remedies:

There are a bunch of home remedies you can use as well to deal with hypopigmentation for as much as you can. Use a strong sunscreen even inside of your house if your house has high sun exposure and try using aloe vera and green tea as they tend to have a very soothing and moisturizing effect that is needed in your case to maintain the hypopigmented spots health and wellness.

Your skin is one of the most sensitive areas in your body, if it faces any kind of issues you should take very good care of it because it can easily develop some major issues if the minor ones went untreated for an extended period. Remember to always inform your doctor about any problem you are experiencing and keep him updated to maintain a healthy complexion.

‍