This is only a short blog post, specifically for anyone flying from the UK to Berlin. I’m now checked into the Mercure Hotel in Greifswald in preparation for my consultation tomorrow with Dr Schallreuter. Nothing really went to plan today…
Flight was booked for 9.10am via Lufthansa Airlines. I arrived at Heathrow to find my flight to Berlin had been cancelled…
After many years of suffering with Vitiligo, I’m lucky in the fact that it still only probably affects less than 20% of my body. I’m repeatedly told by family, friends and colleagues that it’s not noticeable unless I point it out to them.
This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect me psychologically because it does, often I can drop into a minor depressive trip and refuse to spend any length of time looking in the mirror for a few days. Although my affected spots may be limited, the thought and fear of it spreading is what really screws with my head.
About a year ago, I finally decided to take treating the condition seriously rather than just learning to live with it.
I think it’s important that experiences are shared when it comes to Vitiligo clinics and treatments. A lot of new and advanced treatments are not available on the National Health Service in the UK and that means you have to go down the likely more expensive route of private medical care.
I started reading about Excimer 308nm Narrowband UVB laser treatments and it’s high success rate in America, it forces a high intensity beam of UV light at only the affected areas of Vitiligo. It claims to be much safer than other UV treatments and and has less risk of skin cancer(which is why I never attempted UV treatments before). Trying to find somewhere in the UK that could provide this treatment was a nightmare! Only a handful of places offered the treatment and nearly all only provided treatment for Psoriasis(which the Excimer 308nm laser is also used to treat) rather than Vitiligo.
I finally found London Laser Clinics in Fulham, London, who had this to say about their Vitiligo treatment. I was initially told via e-mail that it would cost approximately £70 a session and would take 15mins. They advised I book in for a free consultation.
This is a post just to give my past experiences of Vitiligo treatments.
When I was first diagnosed at 13 years old, I was referred to a private dermatologist in Gloucester who told me that Vitiligo was incurable and I would just have to learn to live with it. I then went to a Chinese medicine clinic in Cheltenham which was recommended by a family friend. I was given a natural remedy, and truthfully, I had no clue of the ingredients but it consisted of 24 tablets a day! I took it for six months and needless to say, it had no effect.
My Vitiligo stabilised for a number of years with no obvious new patches appearing but when I turned 18, I decided to look at treatments again. A local Southampton doctor blindly refused to take the condition seriously as he said he “couldn’t see it on me” and argued that “I wasn’t worth treating”. It was only when I showed him medical reports that you are far more likely to control the spread of Vitiligo and re-pigment patches if less than 20% of the body is affected. He finally agreed to give me a steroid cream but the after only 1 months use, Vitiligo patches actually appeared to get bigger so I stopped using it straight away.