What I Wish Everyone Knew About Skin Pigmentation Disorder.

Skin pigmentation disorders affect the color of your skin that is blotchy, discolored, or darker or lighter than normal. Pigmentation occurs in the skin when the body produces too little (hypopigmentation) or too much (hyperpigmentation) melanin. Melanin is a pigment that creates skin, hair, eye color and protects the skin by absorbing ultraviolet light.

Special cells in the skin make melanin and when these special cells become unhealthy or damaged, it affects the production of the melanin. Some pigmentation disorders affect just patches of skin and others affect your entire body. Pigmentation disarranges influence fair patches of skin.

These disorders can be localized or can diffusely spread about the body. Some pigmentation disorders, such as liver spots, are common, whereas others, such as albinism, are rare, affecting approximately 1 out of every 17,000 people. With some disorders, the cause of dyspigmentation may be readily identified as drug reactions, sun exposure, or inflammation; in other cases, the etiology is not as clear. Most disorders can be diagnosed by appearance. The image shown is a case of vitiligo, a hypopigmentation disorder of unknown etiology.

If your body produces too much melanin, then your skin gets darker.  Addison's disease, Pregnancy, and sun exposure all can make your skin darker. If your body produces too little melanin, your skin gets lighter. Vitiligo is a condition that causes patches of light skin and Albinism is a genetic condition affecting a person's skin. A person with albinism may have no color, lighter than normal skin color, or patchy missing skin color. Blisters, Infections, and burns can also cause lighter skin.

Everybody wishes to have a perfect skin complexion with ever-lasting youth and no matter how sure you are that your laugh lines represent a well-lived life, it is very hard to say the same about those not-so-subtle brown-colored patches on your face. This skin discoloration is commonly called as skin pigmentation which is often a result of genetics, sun exposure (UV rays), hormonal changes, pregnancy, medications (such as birth control pills), skin aging and the wrong use of skin care products.