Glow Getter: The Summer Skin Playbook for Perimenopause and Beyond with Dr. Corinne Erickson
Show Snapshot:
Want glowy summer skin? Today’s episode is your cheat sheet. Just in time for summer’s skin-bearing season, we're sitting down with Dr. Corinne Erickson, the only physician in Georgia who is both a board-certified dermatologist and menopause-certified practitioner. We unpack the impact of peri/menopause on skin health, what to expect from your skin in your 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond, and whether estrogen skincare works. Plus, wrinkle-softening serums, how to stock your cabinet with products that deliver, and we do a dive into peels, lasers, Korean beauty, and the hydration habits that keep your skin thriving at 80. Let's glow, beauties!
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Quotable:
"Estrogen is what keeps our skin hydrated, structured, stretchy, and resilient — and then it starts to leave."
Transcript:
Dr. Corinne Erickson0:00
We lose 30% of our collagen within five years of hitting menopause, and in thin skin areas, you're going to feel that 30% loss.
Katie Fogarty0:11
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty. Beauties, if you're like me, somewhere in your 40s, your skin stopped following the rules — breakouts and wrinkles at the same time. Make it make sense, or dryness that laughs in the face of your most expensive moisturizer. If your skin has entered its villain era with zero explanation, we have one word for you: perimenopause and beyond. Okay, that's three words, but still — you get it. This is why I am so excited to introduce you to our guest today, Dr. Corinne Erickson. She's a board-certified dermatologist and Menopause Society certified practitioner, and she has an incredible Substack where she breaks down skin hormones, products, and more. She's here today to boost your glow with a science-backed conversation about menopausal skin right in time for summer and the skin-bearing months. I got to hear Dr. Erickson share her skincare smarts when we both spoke at a women's conference a few months ago. I was so knocked out by her talk that I ran right up to her afterwards and invited her on the show, and I am lucky she said yes. Because today we're getting into it all: serums, estrogen face products, sun care, lasers, Korean skincare, and more. Trust me, your skin is going to thank you for listening in today. Welcome to A Certain Age, Dr. Erickson.
Thank you, Katie. I am so thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited. I truly learned so much from your talk when we were both down in Florida, and I've had a couple of other wonderful experts on the show, but you really bring a unique lens to this conversation. You are a board-certified dermatologist. You also retrained to get your menopause certification. I believe you're the only doctor in Georgia who has both, which is pretty incredible. What was it like when you started experiencing perimenopause yourself? How did it change the way that you saw your work?
Dr. Corinne Erickson2:14
I really felt like for the first time in ages I didn't have a good grasp on my body. Ever since I was 13 years old and diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I have had to be very aware of how I have felt, and I've been very in tune with hormones. And then all of a sudden — I'm 45 now, so it was around age 43.5 — I woke up and I was in pain. My skin was sensitive, my hair was falling out. I was sleeping, but I didn't have any energy, and I was thinking, "Oh my gosh, am I going to have to retire?" I didn't know how I was going to be able to continue functioning, and it took a little bit of digging and research on my part to really put the pieces together. I think I saw eight different doctors before I realized this is all just a part of a hormonal shift — the way I'm feeling, the way I'm looking — which are all very interconnected. And in trying to solve this for myself, I realized, oh my gosh, if I'm a physician and I'm having this much trouble figuring out that this is just the nature of perimenopause, how much trouble are my female patients having who don't have a medical background? And it really led to this deep dive that started to help me figure out what was going on, so I could continue working and taking care of patients and being a mom and a wife. It really took me down this path of becoming menopause certified to take care of the whole person. I couldn't disconnect the parts anymore.
Katie Fogarty3:53
I love the use of the word "interconnected." I love the phrase "the whole person." I think that's what really made me click with your talk when I heard it the first time — you clearly link the two. I want to ask you now about your menopause certification, which is not common in skincare. How does this shape the way you approach skin concerns for your patients and for yourself? How does it inform the lens that you bring to your work?
Dr. Corinne Erickson4:21
Well, in medicine and in medical school in general, we don't get a lot of training around perimenopause or menopause, and in dermatology I think we get zero training. In looking at what those shifts were, I really had to go back and do Biology 101 and relearn those hormone pathways — some of them learning that information for the first time. What it allowed me to do was to view the skin through a hormonal lens, a more hormone-informed lens, where not only am I looking at this surface structure, but I'm able to see changes and listen to my patients and hear them describe changes, and then understand more mechanistically what is contributing to them underneath. I had already done a training in integrative dermatology, because I am very in tune with how the internal workings of the body — our GI tract, our gut microbiome, our inflammasome — are impacting the skin, and this really put the hormonal piece of that into place for me.
Katie Fogarty5:31
So walk us through what's actually going on with our skin during perimenopause and then menopause.
Dr. Corinne Erickson5:38
Absolutely. So the skin is not just a wall between the outside world and the inside of our bodies. Our skin is a very rich organ, and we don't think of it the way we do our small intestine or our lungs, which are organs, but our skin is an organ that has a very complex environment of cells. Every cell has these receptors, and when hormones bind with those receptors, the cells do different things. Our skin is actually very rich in hormone receptors, particularly estrogen, and so throughout our reproductive years, when our skin cells and our bodies are being bathed in our normal physiologic estrogen levels, estrogen is causing our cells to behave a certain way. It's stimulating water content — something we call hyaluronic acid. It is stimulating our skin cells to produce collagen and to produce elastin that give our skin its structure and its stretch and recoil. It is mitigating inflammation and helping monitor that. It's keeping our oil production in check, and it's maintaining a healthy pH so we harbor the right population of healthy bacteria and microorganisms on the skin. So estrogen during our reproductive years is really helping our skin stay hydrated, maintain its structure, its stretch, and its resilience towards inflammation.
Katie Fogarty7:15
You're using the words "structure" and "stretch." I feel like my stretch is stretching more than it used to. I want to ask you a little bit about when estrogen walks out the door. What's actually happening mechanistically? Is that why we're getting wrinkles? Is that why we're getting sagging? Walk us through what the changes look like in practice.
Dr. Corinne Erickson7:36
The first thing that women start to notice is that their skin starts to get dry and more sensitive, and that's a direct reflection of estrogen decrease. We are then losing the water content, we're losing the skin barrier — we don't have enough hyaluronic acid to hold on to water, so our water-binding ability is decreasing. Our skin barrier itself is shifting, so it loses more water than it used to, and with that we start to feel dry. Dryness is usually the first symptom that we start to notice, and there is not enough moisturizer. The moisturizers are never thick enough. We put it on, it absorbs — and then what feels like it happens overnight once it hits critical mass is that loss of collagen. That's when you wake up one day, look in the mirror, and say, "Hi, Mom." And especially, I hear this — and I've seen this in myself — in the neck. I felt like my neck was just as smooth as my face until one day when I was 43.5 years old, I looked in the mirror and I saw wrinkles in my neck.
Katie Fogarty8:46
I'm loving the 43.5 by the way — it's very specific.
Dr. Corinne Erickson8:51
Well, it felt very specific, I can tell you. And yes, with the hydration, you feel dry. That's the first thing that I think most people start to notice, and we often dismiss it. "Oh, I'm just not drinking enough water, I'm not wearing enough moisturizer, right?" We blame ourselves, but it's probably not all our fault. And then we notice that the wrinkles are starting to show up — we see fine lines around the eyes and around the mouth, movement areas first, of course, where we have mechanical forces at play, along with that loss of collagen that is thinning the skin and making it pleat and crease. And then we see the sagging, and the sagging is from the loss of the elastin fibers and the clumping of the elastin fibers. So instead of these elegant stretchy fibers that help your skin stretch and spring back, it just stretches and sags — like that pair of stretch pants you should have thrown out eight years ago that are now rippling in awkward places. That's the same thing that's happening to the skin with that loss.
Katie Fogarty9:49
You mentioned that dryness is sort of the first onset symptom that we experience, so we probably move to hydrate. Are we looking to do things beyond moisturize when we start to see these symptoms? Is that the right time to start working on collagen and elastin supplementation? Walk us through what you would say to a patient in her 40s, and then I would love to hear how the conversation changes at 50 and maybe at 60.
Dr. Corinne Erickson10:16
Sure. So the first rule is to protect what you have — protect your hydration content, protect your collagen and elastin content. The skincare regimen that served you well through your 20s and 30s, which may have been pretty minimal, may need to change. It's not that there's something wrong with those products, it's just they're not the products of this era of your life. So I have patients start to really focus on applying hyaluronic acid topicals to the skin. We know we're losing it, so let's put some back. Let's use some hyaluronic acid serums that can impart more water binding to the skin, and then at a minimum, let's make sure we're sealing that in at night with a slightly thicker moisturizer that contains ceramides, which are good sealants and barrier protectants on the skin. And then, yes, let's crank up the collagen production before our collagen tank really starts to crash. We lose 30% of our collagen within five years of hitting menopause, and in thin skin areas, you're going to feel that 30% loss. So let's bank it up. Let's go ahead and stimulate those healthy collagen-producing cells in our skin to do more of that, but let's not use our teenager's Retin-A prescription. Let's use some retinols and retinals that are not going to dry us out because we are more sensitive. So that's really where I start in your 40s — building up that barrier, getting it as strong and supported as we can going into the next era, so that we do that more gracefully and without such a huge crashing off of the skin cliff.
If we're looking to bank collagen and we're using topical retinols, what is the next step after that? That's when you really get into protective measures. So we're banking collagen with the retinol and stimulating it — and make sure we're also protecting it every morning with SPF, because sun exposure breaks down our collagen, so we have to have sun protection every single day. It's really, really important. Beyond that, you can start doing some procedures — procedures that are going to impart a little injury, small, calculated, precise injury to the skin, or put energy into the skin. These are nice ways of stimulating collagen, and how much you get just depends on how deep you go, what skin type you have, and how much downtime you're up for. So this is where we can start doing a little micro-needling with SkinPen, or some fractionated lasers, possibly some skin boosters, some light chemical peels that stimulate collagen and elastin. So if you want to add to your day-to-day protective and regenerative regimen at home, you can start to punctuate that with some boosting treatments with your dermatologist.
Katie Fogarty13:12
Dr. Erickson, we're back from the break. When we went into it, you were talking about these boosting treatments that clients and listeners can consider doing with a dermatologist, potentially at a med spa. Walk us through peels versus lasers. What is your first line of recommendations for a client who's coming in? Do you find that one is more effective than another? Do you have a favorite?
Dr. Corinne Erickson13:35
There are so many options on the market right now, and we're very fortunate that we do have so many options, but that can really make it very confusing when you're the patient sitting on the other side. I think it's probably how I feel when I walk up to a Starbucks counter with the ever-increasing number of things you can choose from — like purple coffee.
Katie Fogarty13:54
Purple! I was just in there yesterday and I was like, what is with lavender coffee?
Dr. Corinne Erickson13:59
Right? And do you really need lavender coffee? Is that going to caffeinate you better? So I always start — and this is why you need a good guide in this space, and do not take this on yourself with an AI search engine to figure out what treatment is right for you. You need a good guide, you need a provider who you can trust, because there are so many options that hit different depths and accomplish different goals. So if you're very much just on the surface, you want to minimize downtime, you don't have an interest or a need to do a lot of intensive corrective treatments, then doing some very light bio-stimulating chemical peels is great. In fact, I did one at lunch today on my neck and chest, and I look totally fine right now.
Katie Fogarty14:50
I'm going to let the listener know that Dr. Erickson looks better than fine, because we're looking at each other through cameras, even though you're only hearing us, and you are positively glowing and look gorgeous. I would never have guessed that you just did something today.
Dr. Corinne Erickson15:03
That is the beauty of technology, right? As we become more advanced and we learn what people tolerate, people are not tolerating as much downtime. Now, sure, these very light, no-peel chemical peels will stimulate collagen and elastin over time. They're not going to correct deep folds, they're not going to correct jowls — they need to be used in combination with other modalities if you do have more correction you're looking for. But there are some options that can just give you a little bit of glazing the donut, and they will impart a little more health and integrity to your skin. Beyond that, you have to start to get a little bit deeper with your energy delivery, and you can do that through bulk heating of the tissue with ultrasound or radio frequency. These can deliver energy at varying depths to use heat to crank up collagen and elastin, give you a little lifting and tightening of the skin, give you more volume without having fillers injected into your face if that's not something you're interested in. So there's heat, radio frequency, and ultrasound-based modalities that can be used for that, and there are several great ones available. And then you get into things that are actually creating little controlled traumas to the skin — this could be micro-needling, it could be micro-needling with radio frequency, it could be fractionated lasers, where laser energy is penetrating through the skin in columns. Again, it really depends on the level of treatment and how deep the correction needs to go. With creating more volume or shifting volume to different areas, those are going to need deeper treatments. Is it more a texture issue, or is there some sun damage that needs to be undone? That really dictates where we fall in that space. And you can combine the treatments — so you can do something deep like radio frequency, and then layer micro-needling, or a chemical peel, or a fractionated laser on top of it, so you get that deeper lifting and volumizing plus improvement of texture and discoloration from the sun.
Katie Fogarty17:16
Sun damage is something we're really focused on right now, because we're at the time of year when the sun is finally back. I live on the East Coast. We had a very long winter. We're through spring. We're looking at summer. Talk to us about two things: one, what we need to do to prevent sun damage, and two, how do we manage our existing sun damage if we have it? And I'm raising my virtual hand, because I have some freckles and some sun damage from over the years with very fair skin.
Dr. Corinne Erickson17:45
I do too, Katie, and I'm 45. I grew up in Georgia with a swimming pool and playing tennis, and I have sun damage that I'm working on. It really is just a part of living a life outdoors, and I do think that being outdoors is really healthy for us. But in order to enjoy it safely and really protect our skin from the sun through these more intense summer months, sunscreen daily is a non-negotiable. It doesn't matter if you aren't leaving your house — just like we're on a device right now, people are on their devices all day, and those devices project enough visible light that the exposure we're getting can cause dark spots and worsen melasma and worsen rosacea. So we need to be protected every single day. SPF 30 is the floor. We don't want to go lower than that, but feel free to go higher. And I love the SPFs that also have blue light filters in them, and the tinted sunscreens. If you just want an easy way to remember it, a tinted sunscreen is going to protect you from blue light as well as from sunlight.
Katie Fogarty18:54
And if we're using a tinted moisturizer — and this is such a personal question, because I literally added to cart this morning an EltaMD clear sunblock, which I really like because it doesn't leave a white cast on my face, but I noticed they had tinted options, which I didn't add to cart because I use a tinted face product on my own. So where do you land on combining sunscreen with other tinted products that we're using on our face? Does the tinted SPF go on first? Walk us through your thinking on this.
Dr. Corinne Erickson19:25
Sure. I wear a very light tinted moisturizer with SPF on my face every day that barely imparts any color or coverage, and then I layer a little bit of makeup on top of that which has even more SPF in it. So layering is fine — the more the merrier when it comes to that. And if you prefer a sheer EltaMD clear SPF on the bottom, and then you want to put a little bit of a foundation or coverage on top that also has some pigment and more SPF, you're not doing any harm — you're actually doing a lot of good for your skin.
Katie Fogarty20:02
And do you have favorite SPF sunblocks that you reach for again and again, or that you recommend to patients with a variety of different skin needs?
Dr. Corinne Erickson20:10
I do. I like EltaMD. I like the science behind it. I think they wear well, and especially for women who want to wear makeup, they don't leave a white cast that then impacts the look of makeup on top, so I think those are cosmetically elegant. I think Revision does a great job. Epionce is fantastic — their mineral SPF is SPF 50 and tinted, and really does a nice job chameleoning to multiple skin types and colors, which is fantastic. And then there are plenty that you can get over the counter at the drugstore from CeraVe, Aveeno, La Roche-Posay, and CeraVe, so you can find one no matter what your price point is that should look and feel appealing for your skin.
Katie Fogarty20:59
So many terrific options — some of those brands I hadn't heard of, so I'm off to Google after the show. It's always great to have different options to stock your beach bag versus your makeup kit. Thank you for that. So we've been talking about how to protect against sun damage. You talked about peels versus lasers and some of these modalities that we could use working hand in glove with a doctor. I know a big question that listeners on my show bring to me again and again, whenever I'm surfacing questions about what people want to see covered — estrogen skincare is always at the top of the list. So a lot of the changes that we see in our skin happen when estrogen walks out the door. Is adding estrogen back through skincare options something that works? And where do you land on this?
Dr. Corinne Erickson21:47
Yeah, so studies are promising. It's a hot topic right now, Katie, and it's a great way to start a fight on Instagram to talk about putting vaginal estrogen on your face. It gets people real hot and bothered sometimes — it's really funny. So whenever I see something like this, I'm like, okay, first of all, what are people afraid of? Like, what's this fear around putting estrogen — your vaginal estrogen cream, which is FDA approved and has not been shown to increase systemic estrogen levels — what are people so worked up about? If a woman wants to also impart that benefit to the face, because let's face it, we're trying to accomplish the same thing on the face that we are in a lot of ways when we use it in the vulvovaginal area. We're trying to improve blood flow, collagen stimulation, skin thickness, hydration, a healthy skin barrier. We're really trying to accomplish the same goals with it. So what are people afraid of? I think people are really afraid of systemic absorption. They don't feel that the studies are rigorous enough, long enough, or large enough to show that putting estrogen on the face won't have an impact on systemic estrogen levels, which could then thicken the uterine lining and could then increase your risk of uterine cancer. So I think that's really the heart of the worry and the fear. But we do have studies that have not shown systemic absorption with facial estrogen use, and that have shown efficacy in skin thickness, wrinkle reduction, and improvement in hydration. So my take — where do I fall, how do I counsel my patients, and what do I do myself? I talk to my patients and say, if you want to replace estrogen in the skin and you don't have a contraindication to doing so, then this is how I want you to do it. I want everybody putting estrogen in their vaginal area, so I use it as a gateway to get more women using estrogen there, because we all need to do that after 40, and that's really not going to hurt anything. And then I have them also do it two to three times a week on their face and neck. When do I not recommend it? I do not recommend topical estrogen on the face, neck, or any sun-exposed area if you are prone to melasma, because it can make it worse, and it is just such a problem to get rid of once it sets in. Stopping the estrogen will not eliminate the melasma, because it is estrogen-, sun-, and heat-sensitive, and that combination is a no-fly zone for topical estrogen on the face.
Katie Fogarty24:30
For listeners right now, would they know if they have melasma? Is this something that they've had throughout their life? Is it onset in midlife, or could they accidentally discover they have melasma after they use topical estrogen?
Dr. Corinne Erickson24:42
Great question. Most women discover that they have melasma in their 20s or 30s, because it is so estrogen-sensitive. Going on an oral contraceptive pill that contains estrogen, or getting pregnant when our estrogen levels really surge — those are usually the moments in time that unmask the melasma and bring it out. And melasma — it's not individual circular brown sun spots. It's typically more of a confluent darkening of the skin over the cheeks, the forehead, the upper lip — really common areas for melasma. So it's not just little freckles. Melasma is more of a sheet of hyperpigmentation that shows up on the face, and most women know they have it before they hit perimenopause. Now, if you've never had any of those exposures, and the first time you have really higher exposure to estrogen on your face is when you start using estrogen cream, it is possible that you could unmask it and discover it for the first time, but that would be very unusual, and at that point we would just stop and then treat the melasma.
Katie Fogarty25:49
We've been talking about vaginal estrogen and topical estrogen, which you and I both agree is something that's so important for a woman's healthy aging toolkit. In terms of vaginal use, some listeners may want to pull this into their skincare routine, which is something that I've been doing myself, and I've had a good experience with it. It's interesting to hear that you prescribe this to your patients if they do not have melasma issues. So, where do we land on the impact of systemic hormone therapy and how it impacts the skin? There is data showing that it helps the skin, though it's not the randomized controlled trials with...
Dr. Corinne Erickson26:30
...hundreds and hundreds of women that I think some physicians are still really relying on before they change their clinical practice, but there is data that shows that being on systemic hormone therapy helps the skin. It improves hydration, it improves the thickness of the skin, and it reduces wrinkles. Now, every woman will actually have a different experience with this, because different women's hormone receptors in the skin vary in their sensitivity, so not everyone will have the absolute same response to being on systemic hormone therapy. But there are studies that show its benefit, and truly there are so many benefits to the right candidates for hormone therapy that helping the skin is just another one to add to a growing list.
Katie Fogarty27:22
So systemic and topical can be a one-two punch for women who are able to use it. Let's talk about tools that are available to all women, and specifically to women who cannot avail themselves of systemic HRT due to health issues. I would love to hear — you've outlined a lot at the top of the show, but there are so many wonderful beauty products that I see online everywhere. I spend a lot of time on Instagram — I shouldn't admit that, Instagram gets me to buy a lot of stuff — but there's a million different cool masks and beauty treatments. I know that you recently took a trip to Korea and you were researching K-beauty, or perhaps just having a lot of fun. Talk to us about why you took that trip and where you land on all of these buzzy, fun new product innovations.
Dr. Corinne Erickson28:08
Right, so I had a great time in South Korea, and I went to speak for a company that produces one of these radio frequency devices I referenced earlier. The device is called Everest, and I went to speak at their global summit about it, because I use it a lot. And I think I'm the first dermatologist ever to get up on their stage and talk about menopause, because I couldn't help myself.
Katie Fogarty28:30
I love it, I love it — louder for the people in the back!
Dr. Corinne Erickson28:34
Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of these dermatologists and providers were wondering, "What is this American lady doing up there talking about menopause? I thought we were here to talk about aesthetics." And it turns out it's an important part of the conversation. But I did learn a lot about K-beauty while I was there. The foundational premise of K-beauty is protecting the skin barrier from a very early age, and skincare is part of life for the people I met in Korea — for everyone: for guys, for girls, for teenagers, for women in their 60s and up. It's really just a part of taking care of the whole body. And their ingredients really focus on sun protection, hydration, and calming down inflammation, because they would rather prevent a problem before it starts. Whereas in the US, we have a very corrective mentality — we use and abuse our bodies and our skin, we get too much sun, we expose it to too many sources of inflammation, and then we try to rewind the clock. We need to throw a bunch of things at it to help make it better. So there's a fundamental difference in philosophy between K-beauty and US beauty that we just have to keep in mind, because K-beauty may do a lot to hydrate our skin, but we still may need some more actives to do some corrective work, especially when it comes to sun damage.
Katie Fogarty30:12
I do a lot of podcasts beyond creating my own, and oftentimes I get asked the question: "If you could go back in time and tell your younger self something, what would it be?" And it's always to invest in Apple stock and wear more SPF. If I could rewind the clock, these are two things I would be doing. I'm pretty good about staying out of the sun and wearing sunblock, but I have not been 100%, and I certainly haven't. I spent two years living in Japan, and the Japanese are also extremely cautious about sun exposure. It is very common to see people walking the streets with sun parasols. Women wear white cotton gloves in the summer to protect their hands from age spots. Culturally, there's more of an investment in really holistic skincare when you're outside — it's remarkable to see, and I wish I'd gotten on it earlier, but I'm trying to catch up. So when I also think about K-beauty, I think about the wonderful topical face masks that you see, and other types of treatments. These are probably not as effective as doing a laser or as hydrating as really working on boosting your hyaluronic acid, but are these things worth the money? Are they simply just fun to do? Where do you land on some of those under-eye patches that are all over Instagram? Do these work? Are we just wasting our money?
Dr. Corinne Erickson31:40
These are quick fixes, right? These are going to give that instant gratification of, oh, look how shiny and glassy my skin looks in this moment in time. So most of these, unless you're really going to use the masks routinely three times a week as part of a comprehensive skincare regimen, they're mostly just going to make you feel good for a moment, and there is nothing wrong with us wanting to feel good and to have a glossy look to our skin and be able to see our reflection. I don't have a problem with that. I just don't want my fear — about those fun, sometimes gimmicky treatments — to be that people start to think, "Well, I can just do this once a week instead of using a regular three-step skincare regimen every day." I would rather see people cleanse, treat, and protect — three steps in the morning, three steps at night — than invest in masks. But if you want to do it because it makes you feel good and it gives you a little bit of downtime for yourself, then you're not doing any harm. It's just not the whole story.
Katie Fogarty32:47
You have said that wrinkles are vital signs. I spent some time on your website and on your social media, and I love that framing. I would love for you to walk us through what you mean by that.
Dr. Corinne Erickson32:57
Wrinkles are vital signs in that they are visible messages that our skin is conveying to us about otherwise invisible changes that are happening in our body. It may be that the very first signs a woman sees — she's not doing anything differently, but she is starting to notice some changes in her skin — and it's an interesting proxy for things like your bone density, because your collagen in your skin and your bone density are actually decreasing at pretty similar rates around the same time. But you can't see your bone density — unless you have a non-traumatic hip fracture, and then you're really regretting what you've missed. So if women could pay attention and notice the shifts in their skin and not see these early wrinkles and developing new lines as imperfections and flaws, as things they haven't done, or ways that they've failed — if we can discard that messaging and say, "Hey, wait a second, your skin is changing, what else is going on?" — I think that's a very empowering message. It's an earlier opportunity to prevent some larger health issues that could evolve.
Katie Fogarty34:26
I think that's such a phenomenal framing, because I think that we do notice those early signs — like all of a sudden I need reading glasses, or I'm looking in the mirror and it's "hi, Mom" instead of "hi, Katie" — and this is a great time for us to say: I'm seeing something that should make me do this investigation that you just talked about. How am I putting in place the healthcare steps I need to be taking to make sure I'm going to have healthy bones, protect my heart, and protect my brain health as I age? I love that. Do you feel that your menopause certification helps you make this link for yourself, or was it your own aging process that helped you really reframe this?
Dr. Corinne Erickson35:08
It first started with my own aging process and a mission that I am on to be kinder to myself — not to take on a lot of blame and regret and shame over changes that are happening in my body as I age, but to look at them, interpret them, respond to them, and be more proactive. That's truly where it came from for me. And then in getting the menopause training, I've been able to adapt that for my patients, and really open up a conversation with them about their overall health and about how they're feeling in life. I'm often the first doctor to talk with them about perimenopause in their 40s, or menopause even in their early 50s, and they are often just really relieved to know that they haven't been failing at skincare, that there are shifts going on inside that can be addressed. And now, as I'm seeing more and more of them back — and I've started women on hormone therapy, or if I've needed assistance from other providers I've sent them out to start — what I'm seeing back is that women are coming in and immediately saying, "Dr. Erickson, I feel so much better, and my skin feels so much better." And that has changed my career. It's brought new joy and meaning into the practice of dermatology for me. I just feel like I've become a better doctor to women.
Katie Fogarty36:40
I love that. That's such a powerful epiphany, and I think that's something that comes as we age — we realize that we can embrace our expertise and apply it in new ways to make a difference for people in ways that feel so meaningful for us. I feel that same way about the podcast. I feel like I've learned so much about my own health by being curious, and I bring this curiosity to my listening audience. I hope every show gives them new tools to continue to age and thrive and be vibrant. So, Dr. Erickson, I have one last question for you before our time together wraps, and it's really about beyond aesthetics. You've done such a great job of explaining why we need to be taking care of our skin and the skin changes that may be here in midlife, but I want to fast forward to what happens as we get older — truly older, when we're in our 70s, 80s, 90s. What are the things that we could be doing now? My listening base is primarily in their 50s, maybe early 60s. What are the true steps that we can be taking to really prevent and preserve our skin health at a time when it gets harder and harder?
Dr. Corinne Erickson37:47
Absolutely, and it's the thinness of the skin and the dryness and the fragility that really start to be bothersome and impactful on day-to-day quality of life, the older we get. So getting into a routine of hydrating the entire skin surface area — not just your face, which is always front of mind, but your arms and your legs — and using your vaginal estradiol so that those tissues don't get excessively dry. Take care of all of it, because the face does actually age slower than some of those other areas. It's just that we're staring at it all day long, so we notice it more. The importance of sun protection is really, really important. I think a lot of people feel like they hit 75 and maybe there's no reason to keep up that fight, but there absolutely is, because the more UV hits you get from the sun, the more likely you are to develop skin cancer. So protection is still really, really important. And then being at peace with what your goals are for your skin, I think, is something that keeping in mind will help women be happier in their own skin as they age, and making sure that those expectations are realistic.
Katie Fogarty39:15
Phenomenal advice to close, and I would love it if you could share with our listeners what you cover on The Skin Pause, and the kind of information they can access there. Because this has been a wonderful, rich conversation, but there's so much more that we can all learn that we can incorporate into our healthy aging toolkit. Please share what The Skin Pause is all about.
Dr. Corinne Erickson39:36
Well, The Skin Pause started in part because of my own curiosity — to borrow that word from you, Katie. I wanted an opportunity to sit down and really dive in depth into topics around perimenopause, some of which are directly related to the skin and some of which are not, because truly the skin encapsulates all of us. Whether it's GLP-1s — I interviewed a fabulous physician who is a GLP-1 expert — or looking at some of the emotional health impact of going through perimenopause, or makeup, those things can really make a difference. So it was about finding people I wanted to talk to, to get better answers for myself on how to age better. But in doing that, I wanted to share these conversations with a larger...
Katie Fogarty40:30
...audience. Dr. Erickson, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. I am so happy we are kicking off our summer months with all of our new skincare smarts from Dr. Erickson. Pass this one on to your girlfriends — I know they're going to love the content too. Get your glow on, share it with your friends, no gatekeeping on this show. It's too good not to share. Thanks for sticking around to the end of the show, and as always, special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time, and until then, age boldly, beauties.