We had a large garden, lots of fruit trees, chickens and rabbits and what we lacked we got from the neighbouring farmer. Some months we barely needed CHF 20 (twenty!) for things we still lacked. We borrowed the tractor from the neighbouring farmer and everything else we needed for other work, long ladders for harvesting the high trunk trees, wood cutters, chippers, chainsaws, mowers. Sometimes we also went out with the tractor (Puureflüüger). We didn't pay anything for this because we helped the farmer in the fields and in the barn. In addition to his own barn, he had rented our barn and had cows there. He didn't have enough labour to run two stables, so we milked his cows in the morning and were allowed to keep as much milk as we wanted. If we didn't drink it, we made yoghurt from it. If a cow had calved, you couldn't take the milk to the hut (milk collection centre) for some time after the birth, because such milk is very rancid, almost rancid in a way. It was actually colostrum. The calf couldn't drink it all. We didn't want to throw it away, so we made yoghurt from it. There were days when I consumed 2 litres of yoghurt. After work in the barn, we made our way to the university in Zurich. When we got there, we were met with sleepy faces. We'd already had half a day's work and train journey behind us by this point. Some of our fellow students avoided us, probably because our clothes smelled like stables. My bedroom was next to the cowshed. I could hear the cows next door breathing in bed at night. The wooden wall rustled at dusk when the bats left the house, one after the other - I counted more than 30 of them. We also helped the farmer with the manure. When the manure hole was full, it had to be distributed to the land via the hoses using the manure pump. We took turns at the jet pipe. There was no other way but to get quite a bit of the slurry. That didn't bother us any more after a while. By the end of the day, we were so dirty brown that only the whites of our eyes were not brown. Then the three of us got on my motorbike and drove to the neighbouring village. There was an indoor swimming pool there. We were mostly lucky and got through the entrance gate. The other bathers were less lucky. I wouldn't have wanted to measure the number of germs in the water. Whitewashed, we made our way home. I apologise to all my fellow bathers 40 years after these events.

So brown to white is possible. But what about white to brown? People affected by vitiligo (white spot disease, Baibo Feng or Baidian Feng) often suffer greatly from this impairment. It is not dangerous, but the appearance is! It is also not contagious, but some uninformed people who are not affected are reluctant to shake hands with people with vitiligo.

I learnt during my first visit to China that it is not difficult to treat vitiligo. The doctor who taught me said that all you had to do was make a tincture from unripe walnuts and brush this brown-coloured liquid onto the affected areas of skin. Well, we can only hope that the colour of the tincture matches that of healthy skin, even after an afternoon in the pool, where healthy skin tans, and of course even after a long period out of the sun in winter.

Our walnut tree is old and large and in some years it gives us 20 to 25 kilos of nuts and the walkers who pass by it even more and the walkers' dogs even more. Dogs love to crack the nuts and eat the kernels. The fox also comes every night when the nuts fall in autumn, always carrying the nuts to the same place next to the fireplace, biting and eating them. You can hear the crackling. And then there are the crows, those sly birds. They pick the nuts from the tree, drop them on the road so that they crack and then they feast on the kernels.

Some years there are no nuts. Is it when the weather was bad in spring or is it a whim of the nut tree that it shares with the plum tree? Lots of nuts/plums one year, none the next and lots the year after that? Who knows?

But what to do with 25 kilos of tree nuts?

• Engadine nut cake
• Basil pesto with walnuts instead of pine nuts
• Herbal soups
• Nocino
• He Tao Hu

Savoury soups:

Long soups cooked for hours contain vegetables such as carrots, celery and often meat and bones, e.g. a soup chicken or chop bones and of course various herbs, roots, fruit, seeds, e.g. Ginseng, goji berries, longans, dried figs, jujubes, shan yao, dang shen (codonopsis), huang qi (astragalus), lian zi (nelumbinis = lotus seeds), qian shi (euryale seeds), shiitake, cordyceps, ling zhi (reishi = ganoderma), mu er (Judas ears, cloud ears). On the Complemedis website in the 'TCM-Magazin' you can find articles about this.

He Tao Hu

Walnut paste is made from walnut kernels, rice and sugar and is a delicious dessert. The rice and walnuts are finely ground together with water in a good blender and then cooked with sugar to make a thick paste. Black sesame seeds and walnuts are often ground in equal parts, and the walnuts and sesame seeds are often roasted before grinding. This dessert is a real brain food. It strengthens the Jing, the genuine essence.

I soak unripe nuts in alcohol together with star anise, cloves, grapes, lemon and orange peel, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg and sugar. After 2 months, I strain the fruit and the ingredients and get an almost black nocino that tastes wonderful and matures and gets even better after a year or more. There are also other recipes for making nocino.

Don't throw away walnut partitions (septa, partitions, Chinese Fen Xin Mu), May once said, and since then I've been collecting them neatly and she decocts them from time to time. What are they good for?

Bensky writes that they have an astringent effect, help relieve pain when urinating, hold the jing together and stop uterine bleeding. If you google the term walnut partitions, you will come across further entries. One of them brings up a long list of beneficial effects.

The world of celebrities flirts with the disease vitiligo. It may be that it helps those affected. Mrs Harlow reportedly had suicidal thoughts in her youth and suffered from depression because she was teased by her schoolmates. The picture shows a typical spread pattern around the nose and mouth and on the acres (hands and feet).

Cure vitiligo?

Painting the white patches with walnut tincture, as I was taught in Chengdu? Years ago, a woman came to my practice and asked me for advice on what she could do about her problem. She was being treated for her vitiligo by a TCM specialist who also gave her a tincture, not of walnut but of Bu Gu Zhi (Psoraleae fructus). After she applied it, it looked like this:

The skin reacts in this way under the influence of sunlight (UV) with certain plant substances. This is called photodermatosis. The substance in Bu Gu Zhi is psoralen, which sensitises the skin to it. Psoralen belongs to the furanocoumarins, which are also found in celery and related umbelliferous plants (carrots, parsley, dill, parsnips, giant hogweed...), but also in grapefruit, lemon and orange. Psoriasis is sometimes treated with PUVA, which stands for psoralen plus UVA. This therapy is not free of surprises, as every person reacts differently to it. PUVA therapy is tried for psoriasis, neurodermatitis and vitiligo. In addition to photosensitisation, furanocoumarins are also suspected of causing cancer. Ergo: no more celery, carrots, oranges, grapefruit and lemons? Yes, if you go through nature with the tunnel vision of toxicologists, you might think so.

But really, can TCM cure vitiligo? I ask two students of Mazin al Khafaji who should know, because Mazin is the pope in the field of TCM dermatology and these two have undergone intensive training with him and have become specialists in dermatology:

The doctor Silvio Schaller reports that he has treated several cases of vitiligo, but with sobering results. He had a small success with cases in the early stages, but really only a small one, in which the white area only receded by millimetres or even a hair's breadth. The time and financial outlay is not worth it. This would not justify months of herbal therapy. In the meantime, he no longer accepts cases of vitiligo.

The doctor Thanh Huynh Chinese Medicine - Polyclinic Horgen reports: Depending on the syndrome pattern and stage, a therapy can be tried. Blood stasis and heat in the blood have the most favourable prospects by using the Xue moving remedy (Pu Huang, Bai Shao, Fu Ping...). If patients with prolonged courses insist on treatment with TCM, it is useful to make an agreement: If there is no change in the condition after two months, the treatment is cancelled. In active phases, in which the disease manifests itself with new lesions, remedies that have an anti-inflammatory effect are indicated: Move blood, cool blood, expel wind, cool heat. Itching indicates internal heat. UV light is essential for repigmentation. The famous Bu Gu Zhi tincture has its place here, but be careful: each person reacts individually to the combination of Bu Gu Zhi and UV. This therapy is not fundamentally different from PUVA therapy, which is also based on psoralen and UV. Bu Gu Zhi should not be used on the face, but Wu Mei, which has a weaker effect. Dr Thanh Huynh reports some respectable treatment successes, especially in patients in the early stages and sometimes with considerable effort.

Let's ask Grand Master Mazin himself: his diplomatic answer:

'Yes vitiligo can be a challenging condition to treat though certainly it's worth treating especially in the first 5 years of developing the condition.'

On his website, he also quotes a study from 1981 in which the progression of the disease was halted in 80% of those affected, compared to only 36% of those who received a placebo. However, only 47 adults took part. The therapy consisted of an extract of ginkgo leaves. We are familiar with ginkgo leaf extracts from the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, but this is a special extract because toxic substances have to be removed. I don't know whether it was already known in 1981 that attention should be paid to this. The study is therefore not very reliable due to the small number of participants and for other reasons.

Vitiligo has different forms, it can develop slowly or quickly and shows certain patterns of spread, is sometimes limited to certain areas of the body and sometimes not.

But yes, just attend Mazin al Khafaji's training directly, then you can learn first-hand how it might be possible to treat vitiligo successfully. And if you come to the realisation that it is too difficult, too expensive, the success too uncertain, then you will definitely benefit from the training on other dermatological topics, psoriasis, neurodermatitis, eczema, acne.

A work on vitiligo from 1981 mentions the textbook by Chen/Chen. According to the report from the publication Hebei Medicine and Herbology (He Bei Yi Yao), 27 patients were treated with 15 grams of Ji Li (Tribulus terrestris) tea twice a day with an efficacy rate of 87%. Almost unbelievable. I do not have the original text.

TCM shows more success with neurodermatitis, eczema, psoriasis and seborrhoeic dermatitis

Mazin al Khafaji works and teaches in London. We are delighted to present his introduction to his field of work on Compleducation.

Mazin's expertise in the field of dermatology is undisputedly unique in the western world.

Kamedis products at Complemedis

In some cases, unfortunately not with vitiligo, it can be much easier and it is always worth a try: our Kamedis product range contains products that can often be used to treat the skin surprisingly quickly and successfully:

Two years ago, a young mother from my circle of friends asked me for help with her one-year-old toddler: the child suddenly had itchy eczema, which quickly spread over large areas of the skin and became a great burden for both child and mother. This was despite the fact that the mother was practically breastfeeding the child. They say: better pain than this constant itching! It is true torture!

Intense Moisture Cream CALM from Kamedis cosmetic products for skin & hair - Complemedis quickly brought relief. Nothing more was needed. A few days ago, the child turned three and the eczema had disappeared. We would have had more products in our quiver, but they weren't necessary:

Instant Relief Gel CALM would have been useful for severe itching, Gentle Soothing Wash CALM would have been good for the skin. I don't have any skin problems and no skin cream or other cosmetic has been applied to my skin in the last few decades apart from a product from Weleda, Rausch, Kneipp and similar companies when showering, but I don't think any of them come close to Gentle Soothing Wash CALM in terms of their feel-good character. Although I can smell all kinds of fruits in the others - yes, fruits from pomegranate to peach and mango - very few products achieve the fine skin texture and suppleness of Kamedis.

I have digressed. We were talking about vitiligo. Kamedis has nothing against vitiligo and nothing else comes to mind now. Just this:

You can read a huge catalogue of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about vitiligo here: Frequently Asked Questions | German Vitiligo Association (vitiligo-bund.de)

In Switzerland, people who suffer from vitiligo or psoriasis are united under one organisation: Psoriasis Vitiligo Switzerland - Swiss Psoriasis and Vitiligo Society (spvg.ch).

If there is anyone among our readers who has successfully treated vitiligo, please let us know with a case study. email hidden; JavaScript is required is the address.

We wish you many satisfied patients with skin as silky smooth and flawless as a baby's bum.

Severin Bühlmann and your Complemedis team

February 2025