If you have concerns about light therapy and your skin talk to your dermatologist.
Light box therapy for vitiligo.
You can treat vitiligo with two types of light therapy.
About 50 to 75 effective in restoring pigment to the face trunk upper arms and upper legs.
No drug can stop the process of vitiligo the loss of pigment cells melanocytes.
When sunlight reach the skin one part is reflected and the other part is absorbed by the skin.
Light therapy or phototherapy classically referred to as heliotherapy consists either of a exposure to daylight or some equivalent form of light as a treatment for seasonal affective disorder sad or b exposure of the skin to specific wavelengths of light using polychromatic polarised light to treat a skin condition.
Uv light can cause skin and eye damage.
Ultraviolet type b uvb light is a part of sunlight that reaches the surface of earth in abundance.
It is used as a treatment for wintertime seasonal affective.
Narrow band ultraviolet light b uvb therapy which is delivered via a light box to treat psoriasis vitiligo and other inflammatory skin disorders.
Light therapy boxes should be designed to filter out harmful ultraviolet uv light but some may not filter it all out.
One uses a narrow band ultraviolet b nbuvb light.
Applying a corticosteroid cream to affected skin might return color.
In the puva method psoralen plus uva a uva light therapy box is typically used.
Psoralen is a type of medication that can be taken orally or topically to treat a number of skin conditions including vitiligo.
You sit in a light box or booth or a doctor uses lasers to apply it.
Psoralen may be applied to the skin or taken as a pill.
Psoralen and ultraviolet light a puva therapy which combines the use of an oral or topical medication to maximize the effect of light therapy for conditions like psoriasis and vitiligo.
Light therapy for vitiligo.
Not very effective for the hands or feet.
But some drugs used alone in combination or with light therapy can help restore some skin tone.
Uses uva light and a medicine called psoralen to restore skin color.
Drugs that control inflammation.
Narrowband uvb now considered the gold standard of treatment for vitiligo covering more than 20 of the body narrowband uvb nb uses the portion of the uvb spectrum from 311 312 nm.
Its innovative use in vitiligo came in 1997 but twenty plus years later it is still an unaffordable luxury in many developing countries.
In the recent past the combination of ultraviolet a light and psoralen was used for treatment of vitiligo.
This is most effective when vitiligo is still in its early.