Successful self-healing of vitiligo condition and overcoming psychosocial stresses of a female patient using Yoga Prana Vidya protocols with persistence and determination: an in-depth case study

INTRODUCTION

Vitiligo

According to the medical definition, vitiligo is a condition in which the pigment is lost from areas of the skin, causing whitish patches, often with no clear cause (Figure 1 and 2). Vitiligo is the most common depigmenting skin disorder with a very complex pathogenesis and its treatment is still one of the most difficult dermatological challenges. Although considerable progress has been made recently in our understanding of vitiligo, the cause and pathogenesis of vitiligo lack clarity.¹

The prevalence of vitiligo, also called leukoderma, in India has been reported between 0.25% and 4% of dermatology outpatients across studies from India, and up to 8.8% in Gujarat and Rajasthan.² A study by Mahajan et al concluded that vitiligo appeared to secularly affect both genders and all age groups irrespective of differing geo-environmental, living conditions and lifestyles or ethnicities, had onset at early adulthood and was slowly progressive in most cases.² The two types of vitiligo, vitiligo vulgaris and focal vitiligo remain the most common forms and physical trauma is the important inciting factor. The patients with an affected first-degree family member, may have more chances of onset at an early age compared with others but without a significant difference. Some studies emphasise that screening these patients for concurrent thyroid disorders may have a bearing on prognosis and therapeutic outcome. Although vitiligo may develop anytime in life, the onset in early infancy or old age is uncommon. Besides ethnicity, other factors such as environmental, occupational, metabolic, autoimmune, and other diseases is implicated in the etiopathogenesis of the disease. It is generally known that the psychosocial impact of the disease is higher in the darker skinned races.³

Ayurvedic texts explain following factors as the direct or indirect reasons for vitiligo (shwitra): incompatible food, suppression of vomiting, consuming excess food, intake of sour, sweet, salt and pungent food excessively, heavy intake of fresh grains, curd and fish), teasing and disrespecting the elders and inappropriate acts.⁴

According to Ayurvedic texts, based on the clinical features, the condition where the lesions appear with black hair, thin, non-matted, newly originated, caused due to other than burn reasons are curable. The lesions which are very white in color and chronic in nature are incurable. The lesions of vitiligo appearing in palm, sole, genitalia and lips are incurable.⁴ According to the authors Khandekar et al Ayurveda has different approach to the understanding and treatment of vitiligo which requires extensive research.⁴ Although ayurvedic medicines and holistic approach may contribute significant benefits to patients of vitiligo, scientific rationale behind use of these medications needs to be further explored with modern methods and research.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, it is not possible to predict how a patient will respond to which treatment option, as several options are available to try. It is important to bear in mind that no one treatment works for everyone. Results may vary from one part of the body to another of the same patient. Combining two or more treatments may offer better chances of successful results.⁵

Psychosocial support is a key part of vitiligo treatment.⁶ A diagnosis of vitiligo can be life-altering. Patients may struggle with self-esteem or depression, and they often have to deal with social stigma, due to misunderstanding about the contagiousness of the condition. As a result, people with vitiligo typically benefit from psychosocial support in addition to medical treatment.⁶

YPV system

YPV system is integrative and holistic in approach, and evidence gathered from experience shows that it is successfully applied as complementary and alternative medicine for a wide range of illnesses. YPV consists of three aspects, one is a set of self-practice modules the patients have to practice, while the second aspect is energy healing which is given to the patient by a trained healer, or alternatively, the patient can perform self-healing after learning healing techniques from qualified YPV trainers. The third aspect of YPV is saltless, balanced and controlled diet including fruit and raw diet to help the physical body to be healthy and to maintain its metabolism with sufficient energy levels.

It is known from ages that human existence has a physical body and also an energy body surrounding the contour of the physical body. The energy body is also known as bio-plasmic body or simply called Aura. This energy is stated as ‘Prana’ or ‘life force’ in ancient texts. The energy body contains a mechanism with Chakrams (wheels) and Nadis (channels) for receiving and distributing Pranic energy to the physical body, which is available abundantly in nature. In YPV practice the main chakrams addressed are eleven, and also some minor chakrams are addressed as needed (Figure 3).

Energy healing implies, cleansing the chakrams and body parts having dirty or used up energy, and energising the chakrams and body parts with fresh Pranic energy by the healer acting as a channel (Figure 4). A disturbance in the energy body affects the physical body and vice versa. An illness strikes the energy body at first and it affects the corresponding physical body part/s. Diagrammatic representation of energy body of a healthy person and a sick person are given in Figures 5 and 6 respectively, and the differences are noticeable. A trained healer can scan or feel the Chakrams and Aura with sensitised hands to check the condition whether they are weak or strong, which in turn correlates with the clinical condition of the patient.

Published literature shows that more than 40 research articles on successful applications of YPV healing of humans have been published and more are expected to appear regularly in literature. It is noted that published successful case reports include, treatment of difficult medical cases, diabetes management and control, removing arterial block in heart without surgery, vision improvements for participants of an eye camp, improvements in holistic wellbeing and immunity of participants in a one-month YPV intensive programme, role of YPV in first aid and emergency, improvements of health and immunity of senior citizens, speedy recovery of COVID patients, treatment of hypothyroidism, lowering academic anxiety and enhancing academic performance of high school children, saving life of a snake-bitten human female, improvements in the cognitive abilities and social behaviour of mentally challenged children, managing the pain and side effects of a Hodgkin lymphoma patient undergoing chemotherapy, healing treatment of a female patient suffering from kneecap dislocation.^7-20 A review of published literature shows some experimental studies also were conducted with successful outcomes such as improvements in the wellbeing of prisoners, and significant reduction in anxiety and depression in corporate employees.^21,22

This paper presents a case of vitiligo successfully healed using YPV healing protocols over a period of a year, during which period the patient regained her original skin color without using any drugs or without touch, and also managed to overcome psychosocial stresses. The full details of the case are stated in the following sections.

This study used in-depth single case study approach going through the full details of the patient case history, the YPV protocols used in the treatment of vitiligo, as well as how the patient managed to overcome psychosocial stressors and the results obtained.

CASE SERIES

Patient information

The patient was named Pamela (pseudonym used to conceal identity), from Mumbai, a female aged 29 years and unmarried.

Pamela did postgraduation at a university and pursued professional accountant qualification and worked few years in a tax consulting firm.

Health history-issue of vitiligo

From childhood to 27th year of age

Since childhood she had extra sensitive skin and even half an hour of sun-exposure would give her skin rashes. Many a time she faced calcium deficiency and when she was 9 years old for the first time, she noticed vitiligo patches near her eyes. Earlier her family thought it was some calcium deficiency, but as this condition stayed on for more than a month, her parents were concerned as to what it was, if not calcium deficiency.

Vitiligo patches first were seen in scalp area and also some hair growing from that patch were white, then it continued spreading around her eyes, feet, finger tips, behind both ears and forearm.

2002 (her 1^st visit to doctor for treatment)

She was taken to an allopathy doctor, a skin specialist, who diagnosed it to be vitiligo. She didn’t know what it was and how was that going to affect her life, but when the doctor said this was a disease which can spread all over her body or may remain the way it was for her entire life, was like an alarm for her, that something disastrous had happened to her. Also, the doctor added that, “I can’t guarantee anything whether it will take 3 years or 5 years or more to recover and also once it is recovered whether it will relapse or not and also whether it will recover or not is also not predictable as this disease has no medicines as still medical science doesn’t know the cause of vitiligo”. Still with a hope her family started with the medicines but in the span of 6 months some affected part used to start healing but again in few weeks some new spots used to appear and even the recovery was not sustained.

2007 (age-14 years)

In the initial 5-6 years she had to change her diet which included complete cut down on junk food. The patches in the scalp were completely recovered but the white hair remained the same. Also, many people connected to them knew about her health condition and they did not accept it well and a feeling that she belonged to the same society was not felt anymore. There were times when she felt like a complete outsider and untouchable. It was getting difficult for her to keep up her self-esteem and self-confidence.

2011 (age-18 years)

Patches near her eyes had spread even more and covered the entire area near her eyes. So, she was asked to cut down on salt too, which continued till the age of 17 years, yet, the health conditions remained same. Also, now the affected skin was more fragile, rough and it used to have cuts with climate change and also it used to bleed. With all the food restrictions it was getting difficult for her to manage at college and otherwise too.

2016 (age-23 years)

Vitiligo patches near eyes had spread even in the forehead area and many new patches were also seen. Along with the affected skin becoming extra sensitive even other health issues like frequently getting fever and urinary tract infection (UTI) were seen lately.

Between January 2017 to December 2018 one YPV trainer used to heal her and there were very minimal changes. During this period, she joined YPV as level 1 healer.

2018 (age-25 years)

The patches around the eyes remained same till the age of 25 years. Due to increase in stress levels the number and size of vitiligo patches were changing. Also, she had stopped taking medical treatment as nothing was helping and it was leading to some new health issue. As in her teenage she had been given steroids through some medication for treating vitiligo which had caused hormonal imbalance, polycystic ovarian disorder (PCOD) and low vitality.

They had seen too many doctors till now but many a times the patches would increase instead of decreasing. She had to get healed at the physical, emotional and mental levels so it was a long process. Also, the healing had to first start at emotional level as she had to face a lot of unacceptance from the society.

She did Arhat yoga, an advanced YPV discipline in February 2019.

In 2020 another person was healing her from January 2020 to September 2020, but there were no changes during that year.

When she became a YPV healer, she still had doubts like whether this can really help her in healing vitiligo, because for the past 18 years she had been trying to restrict it and work on it. Usually with other forms of medicines the recovery would start after 3-4 months of treatment and with even little stress the recovery would just stop for the next 6-7 months. So, she was losing hope that she can be ever healed of vitiligo by any modality. And that was the time when she thought of trying the last time by healing herself by using YPV healing techniques.

During this long battle to win over vitiligo, Pamela’s family thought to change the doctors. So, in the past 18 years she consulted 12 doctors from various modalities, two Naturopathy doctors, four Ayurvedic doctors, three Homeopathy doctors, one acupuncture and two allopathy doctors.

Every doctor used to give some sort of new restrictions with different versions of treatment, on sun-exposure, cosmetics, food and fabric of clothes. While they also explained that vitiligo is something that cannot be cured, she will have to live throughout her life with these restrictions, if she wishes to control the spread of the disease.

Self-healing of vitiligo in her 28th year (2021)

Between April 2021 to June 2021, when she was in YPV ashram for an intensive residential YPV programme, a senior YPV trainer encouraged Pamela to heal herself using self-healing protocols. Because of this intensive integrated programme with all the ashram schedules, the cure for vitiligo manifested.

Pamela recalls that she had been to ashram in May 2019 and December 2019 and she believes that, as a consequence, in her case the recovery in ashram environment during 2021 happened very rapidly.

It was a challenge that she gave to herself and persistently healed herself 2 to 4 times a day. She was not taking any medications during this time and within a time span of 1½ months her all the vitiligo patches had healed almost by 50%. Figure 7 shows the images of her face and forearms before and after successful healing. It was like miracle for her, because in the past 18 years she had never seen such a rapid recovery.

Following are the other YPV techniques that she followed along with YPV healing: residential program in YPV ashram for 1½ months; rhythmic yogic breathing; attended 3 Facebook live sessions of YPV which included breathing, forgiveness Sadhana, group divine healing and planetary peace meditation; soul affirmation; Arhat yoga practices; deeper forgiveness Sadhana; 2 group and divine healing sessions of YPV; diet-no salt no sugar, no junk food, no processed or refined food items, and one-time complete fruit diet and daily 45 mins exercises.

Now the next task for Pamela was to sustain and maintain the recovery.

Sustaining the improvements in her 29th year (2022)

It may be observed from Figures 7c and 8c that the recovery was sustained and maintained and also there was further recovery seen after one year of healing in Ashram setting. At this time the improvement of her vitiligo condition was 80% and encouraged by the results achieved, Pamela continued with her practices of YPV techniques.

Overcoming psychosocial stress through YPV practices

The big gain for her from practicing YPV discipline was integrative and holistic improvements. On one hand Pamela had to work on self-healing to cure her vitiligo condition, and on the other hand, she had to face and overcome accumulated psychosocial stressors from family, friends and colleagues at school, college and work. Here is an account of how Pamela experienced psychosocial stresses and how she managed to overcome through YPV practice.

Childhood traumatic experiences: social boycott

“Since childhood I was told that life is going to be tough for me and she won’t be treated in the same way as her other friends or cousins are treated as the society is not receptive towards vitiligo yet”. Also, she was told that she had to be financially independent because there might be a chance that she had to live alone and getting married was a difficult task for someone having vitiligo and even she having vitiligo can create a problem for her cousin’s wedding. So, since childhood the feeling that she was the odd man out and some sort of bad omen for her siblings was deep rooted in her and that became a reason why she became hesitant to share her needs to anyone, there were times when it felt like even though her physical body was all okay and she had no issues in following her routine, still things were not perfect and it felt like becoming dead from inside and a deep lack of enthusiasm. As the vitiligo patches started to become more evident around the age of 15 years, her family became even more cautions and meeting people became a hassle. Whenever she met someone, the first thing they noticed were the patches and then the series of similar questions and comments would repeat, “how did you get it? Why did you get it? Did you do something karmically wrong? How did she get this in such a small age, surely it must be due to some very bad karma from the past incarnation or her parents must have done something seriously wrong to have such a kid?”

One homeopathy doctor gave them a camouflage cream which could be applied on the affected parts and it gave some sort of relief from the questions but still it was just a cream so some people still used to ask what is it? And she was so scared to accept that yes, “I have vitiligo”, so she used to explain them that this was some sort of skin issue which was caused due to excessive sun exposure. Luckily the camouflage cream protected her from her social issues.

Self-rejection, a common feeling of vitiligo patients

Also, there was a constant fear of it spreading to other parts of the body, so she was always under restrictions on what she is eating, wearing, and sun-exposure. Later she understood that there is too much of emotional turmoil going on, and somehow, she had started to not like herself, then hating herself and then a lot of lack of forgiveness towards oneself and also all this was radiating to the people around her and it had reached to such a point that it was quite noticeable.

When she used to visit doctors, she saw how the other patients with vitiligo faced issues. Once she heard someone say that the patient’s father stopped talking to her just because she got vitiligo, another lady refrained from going to office because her employees were not obeying her because of vitiligo. So Pamela felt that with god’s grace she’s much protected as of now.

How YPV transformed her life

So, while Pamela was trying to take herself out of depression, insomnia, hallucination sciatica, frequent fever (almost every alternate week), frequent UTI (almost every alternate week), PCOD, fatigue, resolving relationships with all, being more emotionally strong, she met her YPV trainer and when within 3 days her hallucination and insomnia were cured completely and she felt that bliss and enthusiasm which was lost was regained to some extent. And as this recovery was in just 3 days, she became even more curious to know more about the YPV healings and different techniques.

Pamela learnt the course within next 20 days and started practicing it immediately and all her relationship issues were resolved by 80% in next 3 months by just practicing rhythmic yogic breathing and forgiveness Sadhana 3 times a day. Later on, she started to learn advance courses in YPV and continued with her practices. Within 4 months sciatica, frequent fever (almost every alternate week), frequent UTI (almost every alternate week), PCOD, and fatigue were completely cured. Also, she was being healed by her trainer for vitiligo and so even that was improving. But now her interest was into seeing herself happy and evolving more as a person at emotional and mental levels. “After 9 months of practicing YPV level 2 and 3, I could see my friends telling me that I have changed a lot and it feels very positive to talk to me now”. Her self-esteem, self-confidence, self-love, self-worth, and courage was all increased a lot. She was able to work on her limitations and restrictions and become better day by day.

Later in 2018 she also started doing YPV healings for others and she enjoyed the process of healing someone, the bliss, peace and stillness she felt was immense. It felt like love and forgiveness is getting internalised at deeper levels and healing her from within. By many successful healings she gained much confidence and decided to shift her career from tax consultancy to YPV trainer. In 2020, she was released as a YPV trainer.

YPV: life changing intervention

In 2021, somehow, she got a chance to be in YPV ashram for 1 ½ months and as a consequence her life changed completely. She was healing herself for vitiligo, while strictly adhering to the ashram diet and schedule and to her surprise, almost 50 to 70% of her vitiligo patches were healed. It was a miracle for her, because something which is not even curable by medical science was done by YPV techniques and that too in just 1½ months. She couldn’t believe it. Later she also decided that the camouflage cream which she was applying for 14 years, she will stop using it completely and go out just the way she was without any filters.

This confidence of accepting herself as she was, accepting her skin, her body, a strong feeling that even “I’m a part of this society” was all ingrained just because of the purification that had happened at deeper levels due to the ashram stay and YPV techniques. And now even though it is not completely cured, still 20-25% is in the recovery process; but today she walks out in the world without being scared about what people will say, she has no feeling of being untouchable and a bad omen anymore. She can completely accept herself and smile from her heart and now if someone asks her, what is it? “I openly say that it’s vitiligo and it’s curable, the time may differ from person to person but yes, it’s surely curable and if I could do it, so can you! Just practice the YPV techniques consistently and diligently, may be if I had that much faith and hope since day-one, I would have been cured completely by now. I will be always thankful and grateful to God for introducing YPV into my life and family.”

Way forward for Pamela

Pamela is now pursuing her one-year group spiritual intensive YPV programme at the Ashram to upgrade her spiritually, become stronger emotionally and mentally, and simultaneously acquire higher competencies of healing skills and deeper meditative practices, so that she can help the others in the society who happen to pass through similar circumstances of ill-health, social rejection and consequential suffering.

DISCUSSION

According to Sarma et al factors such as environmental, occupational, metabolic, autoimmune and other diseases is implicated in the etiopathogenesis of the vitiligo disease.³ In this regard, YPV system enables purifying the self and also the environment surrounding the patient. Also, by healing the energy body holistically it enables treating metabolic and autoimmune disorders also. Further to it, the YPV psychotherapy offers stabilising the emotional and mental bodies whereby addressing all emotional and psychological issues, reducing stress and worry and the psychosocial impact of the disease which is stated by Sarma et al as, “It is generally known that the psychosocial impact of the disease is higher in the darker skinned races”.³ Comparing with Ayurvedic recommendations, YPV has saltless, balanced and controlled diet as an essential protocol, which is certainly an effective factor in the successful treatment of vitiligo as observed in this case.⁴

Intensive self-healing using YPV techniques with self-will and determination enabled this patient to cure her own vitiligo condition successfully. It was also observed from experience that when the healer was based in the YPV Ashram where the environment was clean with high energy levels, miraculous healings had taken place with lasting results and this was one such documented case.

It was observed that the main limitation of this study was, that it was a single in-depth case study of a single patient, instead of several patients’ cases. However, this limitation was, to some extent, offset by the fact that this was a longer-term study with sustained results achieved by the patient.

CONCLUSION

YPV is a very versatile system consisting of integrated approaches of physical exercises, breathing exercises, meditative practices, and combined with specified salt-less right diet, and energy healing protocols, it has been proven to heal and normalise a wide range of illnesses. YPV protocols are easy to practice by all people above 10 years of age. Further research using YPV system may be conducted with appropriate samples to gather more evidence in the treatment of this disease.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to express grateful thanks to Sri Ramana Trust for using their copyright terms Yoga Prana Vidya System^®, YPV^® and also to the case subject for sharing the full case details for this paper.

Funding: No funding sources

Conflict of interest: None declared

Ethical approval: Not required

REFERENCES

1. 1. Bergqvist C, Ezzedine K. Vitiligo: A Review. Dermatology. 2020;236:571-92.
2. 2. Mahajan VK, Vashist S, Chauhan PS, Mehta KIS, Sharma V, Sharma A. Clinico-Epidemiological Profile of Patients with Vitiligo: A Retrospective Study from a Tertiary Care Center of North India. Indian Dermatol Online J. 2019;10(1):38-44.
3. 3. Sarma N, Chakraborty S, Poojary S, Kumar BM, Gupta LK, Budamakuntla L, et al. A nationwide, multicentric case–control study on vitiligo (MEDEC-V) to elicit the magnitude and correlates. Indian J Dermatol. 2020;65:473-82.
4. 4. Khandekar A, Jadhav JH, Danga SK. Management of vitiligo: An ayurvedic perspective. Indian J Drugs Dermatol. 2015;1:41-3.
5. 5. American Academy of Dermatological association. Vitiligo: Diagnosis and treatment. Available at: https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/vitiligo-treatment. Accessed on 04 January 2022.
6. 6. Kristina L. Vitiligo: More than skin deep. Harvard Health blog. Available at: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/vitiligo-more-than-skin-deep-2019092617885. Accessed on 04 January 2022.
7. 7. Neravetla, J, Nanduri, VS. A study into the successful treatment of some difficult medical cases using Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) Healing System as alternative medicine. Int J Sci Eng Res. 2019;10(7):882-7.
8. 8. Rajagopal AH, Ramya A, Nanduri, VS. Diabetes Management and Control Using Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) Healing System. J Biol Life Science. 2019;10(2).
9. 9. Ramya A, Nanduri, VS. Cardiac Case Study: Successful Healing Treatment of a 48-Year-Old Male with Block in Heart, Using Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) Healing System. Saudi J Nurs Health Care. 2019;2(11):353-6.
10. 10. Nanduri VS, Chaitra N. How the participants of a Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) Eye Camp experienced vision improvements: A Case study. J Comm Health Management. 2019;6(4):139-46.
11. 11. Neravetla J, Nanduri VS. A study of the effects of Yoga Prana Vidya one-month intensive residential programme for participants on their physical health, psychological well-being and improved immunity. Int J Res Analytical Rev. 2020;7(2):18-27.
12. 12. Neravetla J, Nanduri, VS. Role of Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) Healing Techniques in Emergency and First Aid: A Summary of Case Reports. Int J Med Sci Health Res. 2020;4(3):133-46.
13. 13. Nanduri VS. Effectiveness of Yoga Prana Vidya practice protocols for health improvements and boosting immunity of seniors – A review. J Bio Innov. 2020;9(4):583-8.
14. 14. Nanduri VS, Karnani V. Successful and speedy recovery of COVID patients using Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) Healing. Covid-19. 2020;1(4):78-82.
15. 15. Revathi R, Janani N, Nanduri, VS. Successful healing treatment of Hypothyroidism using Integrated Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) healing approach as complementary medicine: Case reports. J Prev Med.
16. 16. Ramya A, Kraleti P, Gopal KVT, Nanduri, VS. Efficacy of Planetary Peace Meditation (PPM) of Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) System in Enhancing Academic Performance of High School Children: A Case study. Indian J Psychol Educ. 2020;10(2):59-64.
17. 17. Ramya A, Ashwin V, Divya D, Nanduri VS. Serious snake bite case: successful treatment using yoga prana vidya (YPV) healing system. 2021;5(01):101-10.
18. 18. Rajkumari K, Bembalkar S, Nanduri VS. A Pilot Study of the Effects of Yoga Prana Vidya (YPV) protocols on social behaviour, cognitive abilities and IQ of mentally challenged children, Pediatric Review. Int J Pediatric Res. 2021;8(1):7-15.
19. 19. Jain V, Bindal S, Bhatia PK, Nanduri VS. Managing pain and side effects of a Hodgkin lymphoma female patient undergoing Chemotherapy using Yoga Prana Vidya System as complementary medicine: A case report. Int J Med Sci Acad Res. 2021;2(5).
20. 20. Dholakia M, Tandon I, Dholakia D, Nanduri VS. “Successful Healing Treatment of Kneecap (Patellar) Dislocation of a Teen Female Patient Using Yoga Prana Vidya System Protocols without Surgery: A Case Report". Acta Scientific Women's Health. 2021;3(11):15-20.
21. 21. Nanduri VS, Revathi R. Effects of Yoga Prana Vidya intervention on psychological wellbeing and criminal attitude of under-trial prisoners. Ind J Psychiatric Social Work. 2020;11(2):1-9.
22. 22. Nanduri VS. A Study on the Effects of Yoga Prana Vidya System (YPV) Intervention at workplace for Corporate Employees and Executives to alleviate Anxiety, Depression and Burnout; and participants’ perceptions and experiences of the YPV Intervention. Int J Indian Psychol. 2020;8(3):374-90.