Dr. Natasha Cook

Sometimes they can get a little secondary bacterial infection.

So a little topical antibiotic ointment mixed maybe with an anti-inflammatory steroid ointment, I'll use, I fix it.

And then they go on to maintain it with a more enriched, thicker barrier repair ointment to preserve and prevent it reoccurring.

That is a super common problem that we see a lot.

Oh, yeah.

And it is painful, it's annoying, and it can get secondary infected and if not looked after properly early and then not maintained because, you know, a lot of people think, oh, yeah, and I've seen some practitioners just prescribe the antibody ointment or prescribe the steroid but they're not looking at the foundations of then the non-prescriptive barrier pair ointment that one fixes it but then keeps the skin healthy so we don't get recurrence of the problem again.

And that's like what I always say to my patients, I need to make you a recipe of life.

It's not just a prescription, but then we've got to look at the foundations and then how we're going to maintain so you do not get these problems again.

I'd say your chest skin's fundamental sun-induced pigmentation.

sort of be environmentally induced.

Hormonal pigment on the chest would be super rare, which is melasma.

Melasma is a tricky diagnosis.

A lot of operators out there think they can diagnose it.

I mean, really it's defined by biopsy, but clinical acumen, because everyone thinks brown is all equal.

Like it's not, like not all skin is equal and also not all pigment is equal.

And there's about four to five different

elements of different types of pigmented patterns we can see and lesions, including melanoma, that you need to be able to diagnose before you can match appropriate pathology to the right technology.

And sometimes it's a mix of technologies to get pigment in different areas right.

And that's where, I mean, I guess at the tertiary level where we sit in our clinic as a dermatologist, it's also a laser expert, but has also had all these training, we know what things will be the optimal choice for the right patient and their pathology rather than you've got one or two machines, it's a one size fit all approach.

I think that's where it can be tricky that