Vitiligo

[Dixiebell]

I am pretty sure my son has vitiligo. He has not be diagnosed as of yet. His ped said to keep an eye on it. I am curious to see if any of your children have had these problems as well. He is 9 and is still wetting the bed once or twice a week. I wake him up at 2am every night to go and sometimes he will already be wet. We also have limited his fluid intake in the evenings. His eyesight has gotten worse over the past year. His Rx for glasses almost doubled. The eye doc. was very surprised. Since being gluten-free he still sometimes says his stomach hurts. What I would like to know is, do any of you think we should have him tested for diabetes or maybe something else or nothing? What are your experiences? Thank you.

[mommida]

Our experience backs up the statistics. Getting diagnosed with one auto-immune disease is an open doorway to more auto-immune disease.

If there are symptoms then go for a diagnoses. There may be medication, diet changes, or other things to alleviate symptoms, but you won't know without a diagnoses.

For vitiligo, I believe there is an immuno-suppressing skin lotion that can be used. Depending on the areas of skin that have lightened, use of sun screen may be needed.

Good luck and God bless!

[Arwen2k3]

Our son has vitiligo. It was the driving force behind my discovering he has celiac (two weeks ago)! He is 4 and for a year I was watching this weird white patch on his tummy. It then spread to his groin area. This summer when he got out in the sun, the sun darkened his skin and more spots showed up on his feet, hands elbows and knees. He also started to get white eyelashes.

I have read that over time on a gluten free diet the vitiligo patches subside. I am hoping, because it seems that there really isn't that effective of a treatment for it.

Through this experience, I have learned never ever to doubt my intuition with my children's health. You sound like you are concerned and have some ideas. I think you should pursue what you think may be going on. It doesn't hurt to see if there are medical reasons behind what is happening, especially when they are so at risk health-wise.

Does he have excessive thirst? Have you reviewed any symptoms lists of childhood diabetes? It's good to be aware so as not to blame everything on the celiac when there may be something else going on. Good luck to you!

[Dixiebell]

I talked to his ped. on monday and he wanted me to send him a picture of his spots so he could see if it looked like vitiligo. Of course he couldn't tell in the pics. So I am having him sit in the sun for 20 min after school so they will be more visible when we go back in a few days.(son is light skinned but tans very well) His ped. said he could also get a urine sample and I am going to push for some blood tests also. I don't remember seeing the spots until mid summer break and I really didn't think much of them until I started reading online about the bedwetting possibly being connected to diabetes and then the connection of diabetes and vitiligo. I had an ah-ha moment. I am just so glad that his ped. is listening to my concerns and not poo-pooing me. His thirst is worse at times but not excessive. I have thought it was because of living in the hot south. Thank you.

[kareng]

I'm not discounting the fact that he has something wrong causeing the bed wetting. I'm just offering something that helped my boys. These are exercises to make his bladder bigger and the muscles stronger. Its hard to do during the school day because you have to go to the bathroom at set times. When you feel like you need to pee, wait. You'll have to see if its 10 more minutes or 30.

When you go, start and stop peeing. hold for whatever he can (count of 10?) then pee and hold again.

I saw info that the best time to wake the kids up to pee is about 2 hours after they go to sleep. Has to do with sleep cycles.

I found tht it really isn't as unusual for a boy before the age of 12 to wet the bed at night. Alot of moms won't admit it so you & your kid think they are the only one.

Good luck. Just thought he might like to have something he can do and not feel hopeless. This may take a couple of months. One of my boys just grew a bunch and suddenly, no more problems. The other did this for 2 months before it helped. I noticed that when they peed, they never peed a lot (listen outside door). Now I worry they will flood the toliet!

[Dixiebell]

Thank you. I will try to get him to do that when he needs to go.

[scarlett77]

Wow I learn something new everyday...I had no idea that vitiligo was a possible sign that you have an auto-immune disorder. My celiac son has a patch on his upper thigh since he was about 4-6 months old. It has never moved or grown though.

[Arwen2k3]

Scarlett77~ My sons patches don't move either. He has the same patches, but he just has gotten more. It started with just one on his tummy. It looks like I put sunscreen only there. Same texture as the rest of his skin, except there is no pigment there. More and more spots appeared. Often, you can find symmetrical patchiness. Meaning, if there are three on the hand you could find three in the same pattern on the other hand. With my son I don't see a pattern, but he always has them on both limbs in the same areas, not just one hand or one foot etc. He is fair skinned so it is not as noticeable as it is for others. But, over time patches can resolve or lesson and then appear somewhere else later.

[THernandez]

Oh my gosh, I had no idea! My daughter has had some patches on her face that seem to come and go and I even told my husband that it looked like vitilago, but then it went away. It seems like every day I hear about more connections between celiac and other disorders.

[Roda]

I would definately ask the ped to check him for diabetes. Better safe than sorry. Hope you find some answers soon.

[Dixiebell]

We saw his ped today and he said they didn't find anything with his urine sample. He did use a black light to look at his skin and he thinks it is tinea versacolor. I don't think that's it. It still looks more like vitiligo to me. It's smooth no scaling and the patches are larger and not spotty like the tinea. As for the bedwetting, he thinks we should see a urologist in the near future. My son told me that he needed to go to the bathroom today at school and the teacher told him since he had just gone a little earlier that he could not go again. Well guess what? He did it in his pants! His doc was not happy with that at all and wrote a note right then for the school.