Contact & consultation

Arranging an assessment

Outpatient appointments are booked through the hospital on the numbers below; international patients can ask for Michael Yu. Bring photographs of your face from earlier years if you have them, because they show whether the pigment has been stable or is changing. Bring a written list of your medicines, including anything hormonal, anything that makes the skin sun-sensitive, and any skin product you use regularly.

What a good assessment includes

An examination of the face under good light, a judgement about whether the pigment is melasma or something else, an assessment of how active it is and how reactive this skin has been to previous treatment or injury, and a statement about whether a procedure is justified at all. Where the pigment is new, changing or irregular in a way melasma is not, it is assessed as a diagnostic question first.

Asking about the plan

Ask whether a test spot would be used and how long it would be watched. Ask how many sessions are expected and how far apart, what would be done differently if the skin darkened, and what the plan is if the pigment does not respond. Ask what would make this treatment the wrong one for you. A clinician who answers that last question specifically is assessing you rather than presenting to you.

Before you commit

No decision needs to be made at the first appointment. Take the plan away, read it against the guides on this site, and come back with questions. A course sold as a package before any test spot has been observed is being sold rather than planned, and a discount that expires is information about the clinic rather than about your skin.