Pale blotches on skin?

[sarahinphuket]

My DD is half English half Thai. She has the typical honey-coloured skin colour of many Eurasian children. However, she has recently developed a lot of paler blotches on her skin. It started off with just one patch, which she had for ages, but now she has a lot more.
Has anyone got any idea what this is? is it normal? her skin is very dry, but I don't think that this is the reason?
Do you think that I need to take her to see a doctor? She does complain of itchiness quite a lot, but I always thought it was because her skin is so dry (we do use lots of lotion!).
My H thinks it could be something fungal, but I don't know. Has anyone got any experiences of this or know what is causing it?

thanks
xx

Could it be vitiligo?

Hi there, i am caucasian, but i suffer with vitiligo, the patches are pure white. This has appeared in areas where i used steroids to treat excema but there are other reasons for it to appear.

I also have pale blotches - which sound more like your dd's in areas where i have had excema before, and they never suntan or change, but because the pigment hasn't totally gone (had them for several years) i don't think it is vitilgo. I think it is linked to dry skin, since they appeared, i moiturise really well and it seems to have prevented them from increasing.

It is probably worth seeing your doctor to get a proper diagnosis, but there is little that can be done if it is a pigment thing.

Hi there
thanks for taking the time to reply.

WWB thanks for the link - I had a look but what DD has is not as extreme as that. I think it sounds more like what Hattie has said; the blotches are not white, they are just a few shades paler than the rest of her! I think it might be something to do with dry skin.

I will take her to doctor as soon as I get a minute of free time - we need to go to get flu jabs anyway. The problem is I'm in thailand and so don't always trust the doctors - they tend to treat the symptoms rather than find the cause. Still, it won't hurt (and I'm getting very good at refusing to take 4 different kinds of medicine for her!). If it;s still bad next time we come to the UK I will ask the GP there too.

thanks for your help

This is very interesting. My ds1 (we are from India) has some paler patches on face and one hand. The doctor said it might be due to dehydration, lack of calcium or sun exposure. She also recommended vitamin drops just in case and told us to always use sun cream outdoors. MIL reckons it might be due to lack of red meat protein.

He's having the same amount of milk/yogurt that he's always had and water and meat, so I also think it's to do with dry skin.

that is interesting saadia. i'm not sure it could be any of those things for my dd - she drinks gallons of water and milk, and eats lots of red meat! it could be the sun, but then again the places where she has the spots (on her back and tummy mostly, but also on her arm and thighs) are not expoised to the sun that often.

do you give vitamin drops to your ds? has it made any difference?

sarahinp, the dr recommended abidec drops which ds refused to take, so I started giving him Minadex tonic but that doesn't seem to have made any difference.

Must admit I have been negligent with the sun cream and moisturisation as ds is so hostile to anything going on his face but now I think I will try to at least use e45 or aveeno just in case it is, as I think it might be, due to dryness.

One more thing, I also asked the pharmacist and he seemed sure it was a fungal infection. Ds2 also has a very dry and itchy patch on his thigh, which I thought was fungal. The dr said it was probaby an eczema patch which had become infected and gave us Daktarin for it, but this hasn't made any difference.

I think I'd better take them both back to the drs, problem is I'm not sure the dr even knows what it is.

Hope your dd's condition gets better. If she is complaining of itchiness I would be inclined to think it might be dry skin which has become infected. I'm also not sure if, left untreated, these things get better by themselves, which I'm sort of hoping for as I don't have much confidence in the dr's diagnosis.

my ds2 has a patch of very light skin on his face. I was paranoid it was vitiligo but GP seemed to think it was fungal too.