This condition, common in women, is a challenge to treat. We treat a lot of melasma in South Florida because it is more common in Latin American woman, and because we have strong sun all year round. Given our experience, we have created an eight week treatment regimen for melasma:
- Daily use of sunscreen is the first and most important step in lightening the pigment caused by melasma.
- A strong lightening agent (or “bleaching cream”) is the second step. Dr. Minars will instruct the pharmacist to create a compound that is specific for your skin. The compound is a mixture of several ingredients. We use a pharmacy that specializes in compounding and they will mail your prescription to you– this allows Dr. Minars to use stronger ingredients than those available in even prescription products like Triluma (AND it costs less).
- The third step is to peel the skin (one treatment every two weeks for eight weeks). This can be accomplished using a variety of chemical peels or Microdermabrasion. The choice will depend on a number of factors and Dr. Minars or the esthetician will direct you. Peeling exfoliates the outer layers of dead skin, removing some pigment, but more importantly, allowing the bleaching cream to penetrate and do its job.
