Learning to love the skin I'm in - what it's like to be the 'Vitiligo Sikh'

When he was just eight-years-old Nirjeet Singh Gorvara noticed a spot on his left knee. As he described it, the spot grew with him and it wasn’t long until it turned into visible blotches underneath his eyes, on his hands, legs, back and neck.

From a very early age Nirjeet, 33, was diagnosed with vitiligo, an autoimmune disorder that causes skin to lose pigmentation or colour, causing milky white patches or blots on the body. According to the National Institutes of Health, vitiligo affects 1 in 100 people in the UK, with the evidence base for treatment being relatively poor.

Born into an Indian family, Nirjeet says his diagnosis had a profoundly negative impact on his childhood and early adulthood. "As I was growing, vitiligo was growing up with me." He explained. "It became more visible to people and they had comments and opinions.

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"In the South Asian community they see vitiligo as a disease, it’s seen like there’s something really wrong and that I need to do something about it otherwise I will not be accepted."

The ignorance of the condition meant it a diagnosis was left to harmful speculations and bizarre myths. Speaking to the MEN Nirjeet said: “People were always making comments and it was always in the back of my head.

"Some of the myths are that you must have had fish and then drank milk and that’s why you got vitiligo.

"I don’t know where it came from, but it’s not just me who’s heard that saying. I don’t know how it came about, or who made that up, because I’m sure there’s lots of people in the world who have had fish and drank tea maybe two hours later or something because tea has milk in it for example.

“The