Last Updated on 17th March 2020 by Caroline Haye
How did I get these white spots?
Vitiligo seems like such a mysterious and unexpected disorder when it first starts to develop that that most sufferers, understandably, wonder: how did I get these white spots on my skin? Where on earth did they come from and why has this happened to me? (At least I did!). One of the first things doctors tell you, of course, is that it is not infectious or contagious – you can’t catch it. So the other obvious question to ask is “is vitiligo hereditary?”
Will my kids get it?
A lot of parents worry about whether they will pass vitiligo on to their children. But, in reality, the likelihood of this happening is not as high as you might think. Some sources report that only about one fifth of people with vitiligo know of anyone else in their family who also has it.
No one I know of in my entire extended family history ever had it. And, since I am certain (from my own experience of developing widespread vitiligo and then recovering from it decades later) that mine was triggered by digestive problems, maybe heredity didn’t play a major part in mine.
That said, scientists believe that faulty genes are what determine the risk of vitiligo. But no one knows for sure what proportion of individuals with this gene actually go on to develop the symptoms of vitiligo (patchy pigment loss). It seems to take a trigger of some kind to start the de-pigmentation process. So it is possible that some people with the faulty gene never know they have it. And therefore no one can be sure what percentage pass it on to future generations. But best estimates say that only 5% to 7% of children whose parents have vitiligo go on to develop it themselves.
For more information on the risks of developing vitiligo see the page entitled Vitiligo Susceptibility.
