Monday, May 16, 2011

My Story

I first noticed a white patch on my leg about four years ago. I have always had a back with uneven skin tone and white spots, but I thought it was normal because my father's back was also that way. I never thought that it was a condition I needed to address.

About 2 years ago I accompanied my brother to a dermatologist in Indonesia. My brother's skin was flaking excessively back then. His skin was also itching whenever he got in contact with too much sun. This was a problem because living in the tropics meant dealing with the strong sun.

While he was in the doctor's office I just stayed outside, waiting. Then a gentleman sat beside me. His face was full of big white spots. His hands were also almost full of white patches. He was dark skinned so the white patches were extra visible. I tried not to stare, but the curiosity was killing me so I started a conversation. I asked whether he had a fire related injury. He said no. He said it started with a tiny spot on his cheek and it became larger and larger. He was already living with the condition for years and years before he came to the dermatologist. I immediately made myself see the dermatologist too. I was diagnosed with vitiligo that day. The doctor ran a UV light in a dark room to see the spots on my body. I had lots of them. Some I did not even know existed.

The doctor prescribed me with a cream. It was a corticosteroid cream that I do not remember the name. He gave me two options; to continue with the cream and sunbathe every morning or go through the UV treatment. The UV treatment was a bit expensive for me back then. In Indonesia at that time the rate for UV treatment was Rp 100.000,-/cm/visit. It was about US$10 per cm per visit.

I did not really stick to the sunbathing routine or the cream for that matter. I was just simply forgetting that I had vitiligo. That was until I got married, moved to Houston and be a full-time housewife. Suddenly white patches started to appear quite rapidly. My skin became even more sensitive to weather and insects.

I went to a dermatologist in West Houston Medical Center and she examined me in less than 5 minutes. Elaborated the treatment methods and quickly got out of the room. I was left with a nurse that gave me a steroid shot and then I was proceed to the UV room to get my white patches treated. The doctor gave me prescription for Elidel and Protopic to be applied twice a day, once in the morning and before I go to bed. I was scheduled to come for UV treatment twice a week. US$45 per visit. It was surely cheaper than the treatment in Indonesia, but in the end I decided to stop because I was not comfortable with the idea that I might need to get UV treatment and corticosteroid cream (and shots) for the rest of my life. Na-ah, that is not the way I want to live.

What scared me the most was the thought that everything that was prescribed to me was fighting the outcome. The UV treatment and cream were fighting the white patches on my skin and not what caused the white patches to appear on my skin on the first place. Is there any research that shows those treatments as completely harmless when done for years? I have not heard of such research. I did not want to be another statistic. I was already one of the 2% of the world population that live with vitiligo.

My dermatologist was distant, practical and just seemed like she did not really care. She made me think (and my doctor in Indonesia too) that vitiligo just appeared in some people because they had problem in the autoimmune area or they inherited it genetically. Well, I could just read wikipedia to know that.

I wanted to know why. Why did the white patches appeared and keep re-appearing? Why is my immune system fighting my own body? Is everything OK with me? Aren't those issues more important? I mean sure we care about our looks. Vanity is humiliating to admit, but we care. So yes, a promise that UV treatment and steroid cream can make me repigmenting sounded heavenly, but still, it did not answer the why. Something is wrong with me and I want to know what. Those dermatologists did not care.

It was frustrating to feel like I know that something was wrong with me but the "experts" did not even want to try to find out. I started to do research on my own. I started to do yoga because peace of mind helps in any kind of frustrating events, I started to look for cure from outside of the "western medicine" ways. The research and discussion with my yoga teacher brought me to a homeopathist in Houston.

Homeopathy was new and truth be told, a bit peculiar to me. I have not done extensive research on the field, but I felt it was worth the try. I did not want to expose myself to another "harsh" treatment so homeopathy sounded like it could be the answer.

For the first time a health practitioner asked me about my health, family and psychological history. It was a breathe of fresh air. He genuinely seemed like he wanted to know and find out. I then began thinking about major events in my life that might triggered my stress level to escalade. I found several. I never admitted them, but those events and my feelings about them never really went away. I found out that I needed to make peace with those feelings (and people). I was given a small bottle of homeopathy medicine that I needed to take for the course of 30 days. Ten drips three times a day.

Nothing really happened. I still have my white patches and the homeopathy did not help to arrest new ones to appear. So naturally I stopped it and started to do more research. I still have my whole life ahead of me to try other natural approach and I am not going to stop now. At least the homeopathist gave a me a new way to look at my vitiligo as a reminder that my mind holds an important part of my health and well being.

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