Are Cherry Hemangiomas a Perimenopause Symptom?

I am in the earlier stages of perimenopause and have started to notice an explosion of cherry hemangiomas on my torso. This also happened to me when I was pregnant, but they largely cleared up afterward. I seem to think everything is a perimenopause symptom these days, but it seems like hormones are doing opposite things compared to pregnancy, so is that the case?

—Suddenly Speckled

Cherry hemangiomas are really tiny areas where a tangle of capillaries — the tiniest blood vessels — are sitting right at the surface of the skin. They are harmless but can be annoying. They can be more common in pregnancy, and your experience with them — including the fact that they disappeared afterward — is typical. We do think that the reason they pop up in pregnancy is that estrogen and prolactin levels are high.

Outside of pregnancy, hormones aren’t such a factor. Cherry hemangiomas occur in both men and women. They do become more common with age — horrifically, they are sometimes called senile hemangiomas — often appearing in midlife. And genetics play a role. You may notice that other family members have them too.

It is also common for women who got cherry hemangiomas in pregnancy to get them again in midlife. Because hormones aren’t the driving factor in these midlife hemangiomas, though, they don’t tend to regress the way they do after pregnancy.

As I mentioned, they are benign. The biggest issue is that they can bleed, especially if they are in a vulnerable location. They don’t need to be treated unless they bother you. But if they are a cosmetic concern or if they are bleeding a lot, your dermatologist can use electrocautery (a tool that uses electric current to destroy the vessels that make up the lesion) or cryotherapy (extreme cold to destroy the vessels in the lesion) in the office to remove them. Unfortunately, there is nothing that has been proven to prevent them from developing, and once you have one or two, you are more likely to get others.

Ultimately, cherry hemangiomas are common and harmless but can be annoying. While hormones like estrogen and prolactin trigger them to develop in pregnancy, outside of pregnancy, age and genetics are the biggest predisposing factors.