These pictures of my vitiligo were taken during and after my nutritional and UV therapy. They are not the most professional photos, admittedly. But hopefully they illustrate my progress well enough. Unfortunately, I don’t really have any proper “before” pictures. This is because I never expected to re-pigment so I didn’t think I’d need any.
After 5 months: freckles emerging
13 months after starting: freckles filling in
After 18 months: more tanned than freckled (summer)
8 months later: looking less red and a more natural (winter)
Like many people with vitiligo (leukoderma), I always used to cover up. I avoided any photographs that might reveal my white patches. However, you can clearly see the extensive vitiligo patches in the earlier shots. They already have some freckles in them at that stage. But, before that, they were totally white. When I started my nutritional supplementation I had no freckles anywhere. I just had normal areas of skin and extensive white vitiligo areas.
After 2 months: (face previously totally white)
4 months after: freckles evening out
Freckles on face smoothing out after 6 months
Face has returned to normal colour: April 2011
The following photos of my arms demonstrate how pigment can recover, even when it has been absent for a long time. Repigmentation can occur even after serious trauma (in this case, caused by a topical herbal treatment that resulted in bad burns and which took several weeks to heal).
Before treatment: arm so white it dazzled the camera!
Burns caused by Chinese herbal remedy
After 3 months: skin is a milky colour with faint freckles
6 months after: light sprinkling of freckles
After 12 months: freckles growing and joining up
The photograph above shows just how dark and large the freckles became before they started to join up and smooth out into a lighter and more even colour. You may think that this was a difficult stage to go through because it looked worse than pure white skin. But, in fact, I was so excited to see the colour of my skin returning that I would not even have cared if it had come back in stripes! Besides which, it was obvious at this point that this was a process and I was actually quite fascinated by the various ways in which the vitiligo patches were re-pigmenting.
14 months after: pigment looking less mottled
After 14 months: freckles blending in
14 months after: continued progress
After 15 months: skin tone more even
6 months into therapy: hands previously pure white
After 8 months: pigment becoming denser
8 months into therapy: both arms looking good
18 months after (and previously totally white)
After 18 months: pigment looking more uniform
Elbows after 18 months (previously pure white)
After 18 months: feet previously pure white
2 years after starting: skin colour on chest has evened out nicely
Almost impossible to see where vitiligo patches used to be
Left arm after 2 years
Right arm after 2 years
Perhaps the most thrilling thing about this whole process has been that my success story has (so far) proved permanent. It’s not a cure but it’s the closest thing I could ever have hoped for.
More before and after images on the Reviews & Testimonials Page.