Last Updated on 27th February 2024 by Caroline Haye
Are you dressed to kill?
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve loved shopping for new clothes. I still enjoy the guilty pleasures of carrying my purchases home, emptying them out onto the bed and staging my own private fashion show. Clothes are a great outlet for self-expression and individuality. They can make a huge difference to how we feel about ourselves. The right outfit can help us to feel comfortable, confident, professional, powerful, relaxed, romantic, you name it. Let’s face it, clothes also keep us warm. And without them we’d feel pretty foolish. But I rarely stopped to consider that, unlikely as it sounds, my clothing may be to blame for my vitiligo.
I began to develop vitiligo at an early age. And, as it gradually spread, I noticed that new white patches often appeared after a period of intense itching…Often accompanied by an angry-looking rash. I also noticed that certain fabrics irritated my skin if I came into contact with them. For example, the labels that typically adorn the necks of T-shirts and sweaters… The elastic and invisible thread used in some garments… As well as certain other materials, like car seat belts. Whenever any of these came into contact with my skin an itchy, red reaction would develop virtually immediately.
At the same time as my skin was becoming more sensitive I also developed allergic rhinitis. (Runny nose, itchy throat and eyes, etc.). In addition to which, I suffered from digestive problems and aching joints. (Variously diagnosed as IBS and ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Both these diagnoses seemed to me to be a convenient way of labelling a bunch of apparently unrelated symptoms. Symptoms that my doctors didn’t know how to explain or treat. Yet I always sensed that all these symptoms were connected in some way. They actually felt connected and, whenever one became worse, they all became worse (and vice versa).
Slowly poisoned
My increasingly poor health frustrated me throughout my adult life. All the more so because I had been such an active and energetic individual until I reached my early twenties. I never thought of myself as a weak or sickly person and I am not a hypochondriac. I simply became more unwell as time went by and never understood why. The only way I could describe how I felt was to say that it was as if I were being slowly poisoned… Which was, of course, totally ridiculous… Or was it?
Could it be that I was, in effect, being gradually poisoned? Maybe by an accumulation of toxic chemicals from somewhere in my environment? Or that allergic reactions to these substances gradually caused my body to start attacking itself from within? Either scenario might, in theory, explain the slow build-up of ailments and the spread of vitiligo. I simply don’t know, of course. Because the difficulty with symptoms like these is that they can have any number of different causes. Just like vitiligo itself.
One thing I am sure of is that my vitiligo was a result of digestive issues leading to nutritional deficiencies. My dramatic and lasting repigmentation, using a nutritional approach, clearly demonstrated this. But what, I wonder, caused the digestive issues in the first place? And were my allergies and aching joints also a result of poor digestion? Or could external environmental factors have been a trigger?
Allergens and toxins in our environment
What I can safely say is that, if you suffer from vitiligo, allergies or any other chronic condition, your body will be more susceptible to harmful environmental influences. And if you are coming into prolonged and repeated contact with allergens and toxins this will inevitably aggravate your symptoms and possibly trigger new ones.
So, what potentially harmful substances do we all come into contact with for prolonged periods on a daily basis? A frighteningly large number, as it turns out. And a lot of them are present in our clothing and bedding.
I used to believe that synthetic fabrics were a triumph of modern technology… A game-changing contribution to the world of fashion, and easy-care into the bargain. But, apparently, today’s clothing industry uses a staggering 8,000 different synthetic chemicals. And these have been linked to a rise in skin disorders, respiratory diseases, contact dermatitis, infertility and even cancers. More worrying still is the fact that this applies to children’s clothing, bedding and toys too.
Petrochemicals in the synthetic fibres themselves are not the only culprits. The dyes used to create today’s multi-coloured wardrobe choices can also contain a harmful cocktail of industrial by-products. And the treatments used to protect, fireproof, waterproof and dress many garments, which include formaldehyde, are equally pernicious. So it is little wonder that continued close contact with these substances can cause surface irritation at best… Or, worse still, can absorb through the skin and introduce an excessive toxic burden into your system, resulting eventually in chronic illness.
Do your own homework before you buy
Unfortunately, the fabrics and clothing industries are not required by law to publish lists of the chemicals they use during the manufacture of their products. And neither do they have to include them on their (itchy) labels. So the only way to be reasonably sure we avoid most of these “nasties” is to buy all our clothes, bedding and towels in natural fabrics… Preferably organic, unbleached and un-dyed ones. And, with the best will in the world, this can be hard to achieve. But, the more you can reduce exposure, the better for your health, even if you can’t eliminate them altogether. So, it’s well worth doing a bit of research before you buy.
I’m not for one minute suggesting that synthetic clothing is the single root cause of vitiligo. Nor of any other specific health condition. But what I do believe, having researched this fascinating and deeply worrying topic, is that anyone who suffers from any skin disorder or any type of chronic ill health (and even those who don’t) would do well to think very carefully about what they bring home from their next shopping spree.
