What are the characteristics of vitiligo in children and how to treat it?

Vitiligo skin lesions in children often start from the knees, elbows, forearms, hands, heels and other areas that are prone to trauma. This is related to the fact that children like to play outdoors and get injured, and that children are young and lack self-protection awareness. So what are the characteristics of vitiligo in children?

What are the characteristics of vitiligo in children?

1. There are many causes of the disease, the most common ones are: genetics, mental, environmental pollution, local damage, melanocyte self-destruction, and trace element deficiency. Mental factors include mental trauma, extreme tension, mental fluctuations, etc.; environmental pollution includes chemical pollution of food and surrounding living environment; local factors include post-skin trauma, eczema, dermatitis, etc. Other triggers include overexposure, systemic diseases, surgery, etc.

2. The lesions are localized depigmented spots, some of which may initially resemble tinea versicolor (worm-eaten spots), with one or several patches, which then continue to develop into milky white patches of varying sizes, shapes, and numbers, ranging from single lesions to multiple white spots. It can occur in any part of the body, but is more likely to occur in exposed areas and areas susceptible to friction. The distribution is often symmetrical, but it can also be confined to a certain location or one side, or it can be distributed along the cutaneous nerve segments.

3. When the disease first occurs, the pigment has not completely disappeared and the boundary with normal skin may not be clear. Sometimes the disease starts as punctate hypopigmented spots. The lesions gradually develop and expand, and the pigment is completely lost. They may merge into flakes, and the boundary with normal skin gradually becomes clear. The skin lesions often develop and remain dormant alternately, and some patients have obvious seasonality, generally with a marked worsening in late spring and early summer.

How to treat vitiligo in children?

1. First of all, you should choose a regular hospital for treatment

The misdiagnosis rate of vitiligo in children is relatively high. Two diseases similar to vitiligo are anemic nevus and apigmented nevus. Therefore, when white spots are first found on the body, do not panic or be afraid. Go to a regular professional hospital for diagnosis and treatment of vitiligo in time.

2. There are many factors that cause vitiligo

Most of them are due to the influence of genetic, immune, mental and other factors. Anemic nevus is just the opposite of vitiligo. Anemic nevus is only a localized hypopigmentation, not depigmentation, which causes the synthesis of melanin in local skin and hair follicles to be impaired.

3. In the early stage of vitiligo, the symptoms are not very obvious

The boundary between the white spots and normal skin is unclear. If a clean glass slide is pressed vertically downward, the boundary of the white spots will be clearer. Therefore, there is no obvious boundary between the pressed part and the normal skin, the anemic nevus area has obvious "branch-like texture", the anemic nevus has no tendency to expand, and when the skin lesion is rubbed hard, the local area does not turn red, while the surrounding normal skin turns red. When you press down with a glass slide, the anemic nevus will disappear.