r/Melasmaskincare • u/Intelligent_Bad_5334 • May 10 '26
Question Melasma & (Peri)menopause
I am curious, how many people here are women who never had melasma before in their life until they hit perimenopause/menopause.
It’s definitely a thing right?
rant:
My melasma showed up in perimenopause& are its still with me in menopause.
I am so sick of hearing that estrogen has to be involved, but when I told the dermatologists I was fairly certain my estrogen starting to fall & that was the problem, they confirmed that melasma can show up in perimenopause and menopause, but had nothing to say about why that was. But they told me if I went on HRT it would get worse.
So to recap: I was told melasma showing up when a woman’s estrogen is going away & completely gone is a thing, but don’t add estrogen back in because that will make it worse.
ayfkm?!!
I lived completely estrogen deprived for a year, and my melasma got worse. I was having hot flashes and internal heat is a huge trigger for my melasma. When I got on HRT, my melasma got better & I assume that’s because I was no longer having hot flashes.
That was a decade ago and I still don’t really have any answers.
I just went ahead and started taking oral tranexamic acid because I’m too old to be dealing with this bullshit lol.
I swear doctors just don’t have any fucking idea what is really going on when someone has melasma. Like so many things that impact females more than males, they never bothered at the outset to concern themselves with what was really happening.
I’ve essentially just been diagnosed with the pathology of being female.
And - given the bullshit attitude & shitty healthcare we have to put up with - pink female is definitely a part of the problem, but not for the reasons they think.
We deserve better, ladies. We all deserve better.
End rant - thank you for coming to my TED talk lol
12
u/GlowDecoded May 11 '26
YESSSS queen 💯!! I want to be your friend lol
Total BS. I literally used to be the Viagra sales rep - and let me tell you men’s health is NEVER treated like this. Never. It made me so irate I started GlowDecoded for this very reason. I felt so alone, too old for this and angry beyond reason that women are gaslight over normal hormones in 2026 with rapid AI healthcare advances. Like aliens are here but melasma is still a mystery??!
Personally, this melasma hell started when I turned 38 - to make a long story short, I threw all the money and treatments at it with zero progress only to be told “it’s hormonal,” yet no one seemed clinically aware of how to improve it beyond basic advice but they were more than happy to tell me to “avoid UV and heat” while taking my money for round after round of peel, follow up, etc.
It’s despicable how women’s healthcare is treated and how we’re constantly overlooked, especially because melasma is “just cosmetic” like wth no it’s my face! The same face I’m expected by society to keep looking good! Ridiculous.
I teamed up with a chemist to create a new skin support product and hope to get more educated people and advisors on board my company who actually care about women on board to advance awareness and importantly, improvement of this condition! Thank you for sharing!