How would you rate your doctor? Back in the Dark Ages, before the internet, it was customary to rely on the family-doctor for all medical opinions, diagnoses and treatments. Our GP (primary care physician) was considered to be the infallible oracle for all questions biological and physiological and his or […]
Attitudes & Awareness
39 posts
plus my thoughts on ducks, country walks, ships and ecosystems! If you are short on time and want to know what the opportunity to highlight vitiligo on TV is, then skip to the end of this post. But, if the subtitle intrigues you, please read on, and all will become […]
Skin colour and identity I’m sure I am not the only person to have occasionally pondered the question “who am I?” We all know we have a physical body but we also know there is more to us than that. So what is it that makes me uniquely me? Wow […]
Great to see all the social media activity yesterday on World Vitiligo Day – finally the word is getting out. Education, information and understanding are all helping to reduce ignorance, prejudice and stigmatisation. Finally. At last, we are seeing a greater awareness of vitiligo. Congratulations to everyone who took part […]
Online support Advances in medical research may not have made a massive impact yet on the lives of people with vitiligo. But advances in communications certainly have. In the past few years public awareness of vitiligo (or leukoderma, as it is sometimes known) has become much greater. And, thanks to […]
People are like gift wrap: all different colours and designs! Without wanting to state the obvious, there are a lot of people on the planet… About 7 billion at the time of writing. Homo sapiens first walked the earth about 50,000 years ago. And since then the Population Reference Bureau […]
Vitiligo “facts” you may want to question The skin condition vitiligo, which results in patchy loss of skin colour, has been largely ignored and misunderstood for generations. Media and scientific interest in it are relatively recent and still in their infancy. But the times, they are a-changing. And increased awareness […]
I received an email this week from the makers of a Channel 4 TV documentary which could offer an opportunity to raise awareness and understanding of what vitiligo is and how it can affect people socially and psychologically. (You may remember me posting about a previous series last November.) I […]
Or is it just a symptom? As the saying goes: “The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realise, the less I know.” Thanks to the internet, most of us affected by vitiligo nowadays can acquire a wealth of second-hand knowledge on the […]
Social media and body image research Researchers in the USA conducted some research into the effects of Facebook use on users’ body-image and their findings (summarised below) come as no surprise. However, they are not quite those I would expect if they had conducted the same research on vitiligo sufferers… […]
Is vitiligo beautiful? It can be. If you doubt that vitiligo can be beautiful, then take a look at the photos on Steve Hargadon’s wonderful Uniquely Beautiful vitiligo collage. You will soon see what I mean. The many and varied patterns of vitiligo in these pictures seem to turn the […]
Raising awareness of this misunderstood skin condition is not part of a celebrity’s job description. But it does help. Most sources on the subject estimate the percentage of the global population with #vitiligo is between 0.5% and 2%. This does not exactly make it a common condition (like eczema, for example, […]
A chance to contribute A new health show for the Discovery Channel is hoping to raise awareness of a wide variety of medical conditions in order for viewers to gain a clearer understanding of what it’s like to live with these conditions. The show will explore the symptoms associated with […]
Will 2014 be the year of the vitiligo cure? An estimated 2% of the world’s population will be ecstatic if the answer to this question proves to be yes. There is no doubt that one of these years (and it’s getting sooner all the time!) researchers will come up trumps and […]
If you have #vitiligo and have not yet come across a site called (appropriately enough!) http://www.ihavevitiligo.com do check it out. It belongs to Keith Evans from California and is a fabulous resource full of inspiration, information and common sense. Thanks for a great site, Keith – keep up the good work. We […]
… never, never … never give in! For years I had no real expectation of regaining my skin colour because I had been told by the medical establishment that there was no cure and had been led to believe that my lost pigment was just that – lost for ever. […]
I’ve received a request from the makers of Channel 4’s ‘The Food Hospital’ series. Perhaps you saw it last year? The idea is based on the practice of dietetics, so the series explores the possible health benefits of everyday foods in targeting a wide range of medical conditions and symptoms. […]
Maybe not – but money talks I’ll start by reassuring you that I really am not a conspiracy theorist. I just get a bit angry sometimes about the fact that modern medicine is so drug-focussed instead of being health-focussed. Vitiligo patients are only too familiar with the dismissive reaction that […]