This is the 1953rd article of Da Yi Xiao Nursing
Melasma, often symmetrically butterfly-shaped, is distributed over the cheeks, and it has a beautiful name in TCM literature – "butterfly spots". However, the "dead leaf butterfly" of melasma is not only not beautiful enough, but also becomes a major obstacle for every beauty lover to pursue beauty.
Melasma is more common in women, appears light brown or dark brown, and is distributed in the orbit, brow arch, nose, cheeks, and lips, and patients often have no discomfort. Although melasma is painless, smooth and chipless, and has little damage to physical health, melasma does not retreat for a long time, resulting in a dull complexion, affecting appearance, greatly damaging the mental health of patients, and medical intervention should be carried out.
Melasma is formed due to excessive melanin under the skin, excessive melanin concentration is visible in the epidermis, and there are more melanocytes that swallow melanin in the dermis, these melanin and melanocytes accumulate in the skin, react on the face, showing a color ranging from light brown to dark brown, obscuring the original skin color, making the face dull.
The cause of melasma is currently unknown and is generally thought to be related to high levels of estrogen in the blood. Pregnancy, long-term oral contraceptives, endocrine disorders, etc. will cause estrogen levels to rise and induce melasma, liver disease can cause abnormal estrogen inactivation in the body and lead to elevated estrogen, which can also induce melasma; in addition, photoaging caused by ultraviolet rays, improper use of cosmetics, and heredity are also one of the important influencing factors for the onset of melasma. Although melasma is generally considered to be a patent for women, no less than 10% of male patients suffer from melasma due to genetics, liver disease and other reasons.
At present, there is a lack of systematic understanding of the treatment of melasma, which can be summarized as "the right medicine" and "each shows magic".
For patients with liver disease, endocrine disorders and other internal diseases, priority should be given to the treatment of the primary disease, and patients with melasma induced by oral contraceptives should temporarily stop the drug and take other contraceptive measures. In addition to cutting off the cause, antimelanin-producing agents are also used simply and crudely in the treatment of melasma, but are difficult to reuse because of their huge side effects such as permanent depigmentation, carcinogenicity, and vitiligo-inducing. Sun protection, vitamin C supplementation, vitamin E, lipoic acid, etc. are commonly used to protect against melasma. In contrast, laser is currently the most effective means of treating melasma, but it faces the dilemma of easy recurrence.
The examination cases for the treatment of melasma are scattered in the Literature of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and most doctors locate the location of melasma in the three organs of the liver, spleen and kidneys, and blame it on the invasion of wind and evil. From the analysis of etiology, Chinese medicine calls melasma "liver spots", "Mucuna mucuna spots" in color, and "butterfly spots" in shape, comprehensively and vividly summarizes the characteristics of melasma. Looking at various medical cases, the treatment of melasma is often used to thin the liver and supplement the kidneys, strengthen the spleen and dissolve wetness, activate the blood and dissolve stasis. Chinese medicine believes that "women take the liver as a congenital", the liver is like a tree, like to harmonize the environment, the method of liver thinning is not only widely used in gynecological diseases, the results are excellent, and it is also the first choice in the treatment of melasma.
In addition to medications and a variety of adjunctive treatments, lifestyle interventions can cure many diseases.
Healthy life, eat well, sleep well, comfortable mood, first give the skin a beautiful environment.
I believe that when you wake up one morning, you will find that the butterfly that once landed on your face has shaken its wings and quietly flew away.
Author: Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Dermatology Feng Xinyi, Li Fulun