How long does vitiligo recovery take?

Last Updated on 18th November 2023 by Caroline Haye

How long is a piece of string?

For most of my life vitiligo felt like a problem with no solution. A mystery without an explanation. A question without an answer. Eventually, I was lucky enough to find some answers for myself. And, even if I didn’t succeed in explaining the mystery behind it, I did at least manage to reverse my own vitiligo. Meanwhile, science and society at large were beginning to come up with bigger answers. Research, awareness campaigning and online access to information all played a part in an ongoing demystification of vitiligo. And yet, there is one common question that no one comes any closer to answering. A question that, despite having gone through the process myself, I can’t answer either. That question is, how long does vitiligo recovery take?

Asking this is like asking how long is the proverbial piece of string. In fact, it’s more like asking how long is a piece of elastic. So, instead of trying to answer the unanswerable, I would like to pose three different, but related, questions instead because I think those answers might actually be more relevant.

1. Why is vitiligo recovery so rarely even talked about?

My own repigmentation came as a massive surprise. I had always heard that vitiligo only ever got worse. So vitiligo recovery wasn’t a phrase I had ever really come across. In fact, it was almost a contradiction in terms. So, when my pigment started (and continued) to return, it felt as if the impossible was happening to me. In fact, for a long time afterwards too, it continued to feel quite surreal.

But, as time went by and I began blogging and making a personal study of the subject, the concept of vitiligo recovery gradually became so normal to me that I almost lost sight of how unusual my own experience had been. And finding so few stories of vitiligo recovery online (whilst hearing from so many people whose experiences and expectations were negative) was a constant reminder of this fact.

So, the most obvious reason why vitiligo recovery is so rarely talked about is because it is still, relatively speaking, unusual. And, of course, it follows that if vitiligo recovery is comparatively uncommon, there will not be a massive amount of data available to help with predicting the average duration of recovery.

2. What factors affect vitiligo recovery times?

Just because vitiligo recovery is an unfamiliar concept doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen – to one degree or another – all the time and all around the world. Individuals can and do recover their skin colour. In some cases this occurs for no apparent reason. And it may happen quite fast (a matter of weeks) or gradually over months or years.

There has been too little research into spontaneous repigmentation to help predict typical recovery times. Added to which, there is a whole host of different factors that can impact on a person’s progress, or lack of it, whether their recovery is spontaneous or the result of treatments or therapies. Here are just a few:

• The particular type and cause of a person’s vitiligo
• Differing strategies and types of therapy
• Variable length of time spent undergoing treatment
• The amount of trial and error required before finding the right combination of therapies
• How diligent and consistent the individual is in using their chosen therapy
• The risk of sabotaging your efforts (e.g. with bad diet, environmental triggers, stress, injury, etc.)

Above all, it comes down to the fact that we are all different with different genes, environment, circumstances and medical history. And most of us (unless we are part of a clinical trial) choose different therapies and use them in different ways.

3. Does it really matter how long vitiligo recovery takes?

The best way for me to answer this third question is to describe how I felt about my recovery while I was actually going through the process. At first – before I actually tried any remedies – I was so desperate for a cure that I frequently dreamt about waking up and finding my vitiligo patches gone. Of course, I knew that, in reality, recovery – if it was even possible – would not happen overnight. And, at that stage, I would have been willing to go through any length of treatment and accept any time frame if only I could just see the tiniest amount of new pigment to give me hope.

Each time I tried something new (PUVA, herbal medicines, etc,) I became anxious about my need to see results. I felt fearful that I would be disappointed yet again. And, whenever I thought I noticed the smallest change in my skin, I obsessed over whether or not I was imagining it. At that point I became impatient for definite signs of improvement. A single freckle would have been enough to transform my anxiety into excitement. And a couple of the remedies I tried did produce a freckle or two. But these appeared for a week or so, then disappeared again.

I eventually became so resigned to the idea that vitiligo truly was incurable (and untreatable) that my final experiment (with nutritional supplements) was one I entered into with very little enthusiasm and no real expectation of success. With hindsight I think these low expectations may have helped me because they prevented me from obsessively looking for results. In a way, they allowed me to relax and just go through the motions of taking my nutritional supplements every day as a matter of habit.

For me, the time frame was unimportant

So, when swarms of freckles (not just a few) started to appear after a month or so, I couldn’t have been more surprised and delighted. Imagine being told you had won BIG on the lottery and being so excited that you didn’t even think to ask what the actual amount of money was. That’s what it was like. My joy and amazement was in realising that vitiligo could go into reverse. I didn’t think about how long the repigmentation would continue, how complete it would be or how long it would take. I was just grateful beyond words that it was happening at all.

Most importantly, it proved to me that the thing I had thought was impossible was possible after all. It filled me with hope, relief and, as it continued, a high expectation of further success. I didn’t care how long it would take. In fact, seeing it happen in front of my eyes as the weeks turned into months was part of the excitement. Not only that, but I found that my self-confidence blossomed and grew from the moment I realised what was happening to me. And so the question of how long my eventual recovery would take became less and less relevant as my re-pigmentation went on.

I don’t know how typical my reaction was or whether other people in the same situation would feel differently. I can only tell you that this is how it was for me. And I share this to compensate for the fact that there is no simple answer to the question, how long does vitiligo recovery take? Maybe it comes down to this… It really doesn’t matter how long a piece of string is if that piece of string turns out to be exactly the perfect one for the job.