Help for Indian or other skin types with pigment (melasma) due to oral contraceptives!

hello madam, I am an INDIAN and 26 years married, i am also doing my mtech and so i have to go college every day.due to aviod pregnancy my doctor prescribed me contraceptive 'femilon' after consuming it for 5 months i can see some dark circles around my cheek bones and it seems like pigmentation i amm really worried as it is getting darker.please madam suggest me some ointment or peels to get rid of it .Also suggest me whether i should stop contraceptives or not.please help me as it is very embarrasing

Okay, so there is a short term and a long term problem here. For the short term, as soon as possible, please get a hydroquinone 4% cream, a tinted, high zinc sunscreen (like the Dermaquest tinted), and a hat with a brim. If you start all three of these right away, it will help. I apologize because we don’t ship internationally yet and I’m hoping maybe you can get that DermaQuest sunscreen from another site. The basic idea is that you want a zinc containing sunscreen that has 10-20% zinc but doesn’t make you look chalky.

 

Long term, you clearly need a contraceptive plan, so don’t stop your contraceptives until you go back to your doctor and get a different method. I don’t know if the Merena IUDs are available in India but they’ve been very helpful for women with melasma here since they don’t cause or aggravate melasma. Melasma is the hormones plus sunlight related pigment often due to pregnancy or oral contraceptives.

 

Hope this helps,  Dr. I

 

Read about Melasma in Depth.

 

See Dr. Irwin’s recommendations on organic skin care.

 

 

Dr. Brandith Irwin, MD

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Hi, I’m Dr. Irwin. I believe that consumers deserve a medically trained and unbiased skin care advocate.

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