Disclamer: as far as I known I'm the only mermaid with a piebald tail and vitiligo skin to match.
If there are any others, I'd love to know.
So what is piebald and what is vitiligo?
The two terms are essentially the same condition, but piebald occurs in animals, birds, fish, reptiles and vitiligo occurs in humans.
Both consist of patches of skin, fur, hair, or scales that lack any pigmentations (color) and are thus completely white/albino.
The patches may be big, small, few, many, or almost completely taken over the original skin tone.
It often occurs most frequently in people and critters with darker skin tones. It does however occur across the races and all animals, fish, reptiles, birds, etc without partiality.
It's not commonly found in nature in critters as the white patches do not allow for easy blending with the environment and the creature is most likely to not survive long due to predators.
Vitiligo is a auto-immune disorder that occurs in less than 1% of the worlds population.
Not a lot is known about the ins and outs of how or why vitiligo works.
A common thought is that stress can trigger or increase the growth of vitiligo.
Vitiligo causes extreme sun sensitivity in those who have it in large quantities.
The skin is stripped of its color and in doing so all the natural protection from the sun is gone.
Vitiligo usually comes in semi matching patches that correspond to other patches on the body.
Such as if a person has vitiligo on the right elbow most likely the left elbow also has vitiligo but perhaps not the same size patch of white.
Vitiligo mostly grows at the joints.
Most vitiligo is genetically linked.
On to my tail and vitiligo!
I have a fairly extreme case of vitiligo. It covers more than 75% of my skin.
My vitiligo was spread out very symmetrically; but in recent years its all started blending together really fast. I've had vitiligo for 20 years and it really picked up speed during nursing school and hasn't slowed down yet.
Both of my maternal grandparents had vitiligo. My grandpa was almost completely white by the time he was 40ish. My grandma never had very much at all. My paternal grandmother has premature graying and my hair is headed that way in both areas with vitiligo and areas without.
My skin doesn't do well in direct sunshine from about 11am to 4pm. I normally swim with long tights and long sleeved surfing rash guards since sunscreen doesn't work for long after I get wet.
With out sunscreen in direct sunlight I get 2nd degree sunburns after about 30 minutes.
It's very painful when it sunburns. I tried once to go swimming with sunscreen and no coverup and it was a really bad idea. I could hardly move for two weeks after due to the blistering of my skin.
I've always wanted to have a piebald mermaid tail to match my skin. The vitiligo on my legs is much more pronounced than my arms and torso. The peibalding on my tail matches the same patterning of vitiligo on my legs. The piebaldism would be more striking on a patterned tail such as a mantis shrimp where the white patches would completely disrupt the pattern. As this is my first tail to make, I didn't make any patterns on it. Besides I've always wanted a turquoise piebald tail anyway.
As my tail needs sequin repairs as time goes on I plan to repair it mostly with white scales to reflect the spreading vitiligo on my skin.
I've attached some pics below.
I am curious though, any other mers on here that either have vitiligo or know of anyone with vitiligo.
Any questions about vitiligo?
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks