Uneven Skin Tone May Be Sign Of A More Serious Skin Disease By Sharon Bell At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Skin discoloration should not be a cause for alarm. More often than not, having uneven skin tone or color is caused by factors like over exposure to sunlight, allergic reaction, or the normal processes of aging. However, there are cases where the appearance of patches or discoloration on any area of your skin should prompt you to see your doctor or consult with dermatologists. Among the most notorious skin discolorations are the symptoms brought by tinea versicolor and vitiligo.

Tinea Versicolor

This is a skin infection which can heavily affect areas like your stomach, shoulders, and chest among other parts of your body. Even so, this skin disease is considered a fairly common condition. It mainly affects people who are living in places that are warm and with high levels of humidity, particularly young adults and those who are in their adolescent years.

Tinea versicolor causes the affected skin areas to become lighter, or sometimes darker, than one's normal skin color. This skin condition is brought about by a superficial form of yeast infection and can be easily cured. In this particular skin disease, dermatologists surmise that the yeasts are feeding off on the skin's natural oil and dead skin cells which you and everybody else have in abundance. And because of this, tinea can easily spread to other parts of the body.

To fight off this skin disease you can use antifungal medicines that can be applied on your skin. Look for ointments or creams that contain selenium sulfide or ketoconazole as these are effective compounds used against skin infections. There are also oral medications that doctors can prescribe against this fungal infection.

Vitiligo

Another infamous skin discoloration is known as vitiligo. This is a skin condition that results to loss of skin pigments which is why it is characterized by light or pale spots on the skin. The spots are irregular in shape and can definitely spread to any part of the body including your face, scalp and soles of your feet. If you have this condition, your skin will look like a camouflage outfit; only you have a mixture of normal skin color and light or pale patches.

For most of the people who have vitiligo, white skin patches begin to appear even before they reach their twenties. And the de-pigmentation usually starts in places located in the upper and lower extremities of the body. It has been observed that the white skin patches occur in a symmetrical manner between the two sides of the body's extremities.

The causes behind this skin condition still baffles skin experts. But there is growing evidence that points to genetic traits and immune system defects as the main factors behind this disease. There are a number of medical treatment procedures applied for vitiligo which include steroidal therapy and skin grafting.

Applying steroid therapy directly to the affected areas can help bring back the color or pigment to those areas thereby reducing or eliminating the white spots. Skin grafting, on the other hand, involves surgically removing an affected area and replacing it with a healthy patch of skin. Whatever treatment you choose for vitiligo, you need to consult with your doctor and reputable skin experts.

Again, on majority of occasions, your skin discoloration is harmless. Usually, it simply means an imbalance in the amount of melanin and sebum in your skin tissues. Melanin being the substance that controls the pigmentation on your skin and sebum being responsible for allowing dead skin cells to stick to your dermis instead of shedding them, this causes discolored patches to occur.

Nobody wants uneven skin tone or discolored patches on the skin. All these problems can make you look older and can affect your self-esteem.

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