diff --git a/src/Markdown.js b/src/Markdown.js
index 2e6f391818..dc4d442aff 100644
--- a/src/Markdown.js
+++ b/src/Markdown.js
@@ -22,47 +22,12 @@ const ALLOWED_HTML_TAGS = ['sub', 'sup', 'del', 'u'];
 // These types of node are definitely text
 const TEXT_NODES = ['text', 'softbreak', 'linebreak', 'paragraph', 'document'];
 
-// prevent renderer from interpreting contents of AST node
-function freeze_node(walker, node) {
-    const newNode = new commonmark.Node('custom_inline', node.sourcepos);
-    newNode.onEnter = node.literal;
-    node.insertAfter(newNode);
-    node.unlink();
-    walker.resumeAt(newNode.next, true);
-}
-
-// prevent renderer from interpreting contents of latex math tags
-function freeze_math(parsed) {
-    const walker = parsed.walker();
-    let ev;
-    let inMath = false;
-    while ( (ev = walker.next()) ) {
-        const node = ev.node;
-        if (ev.entering) {
-            if (!inMath) {
-                // entering a math tag
-                if (node.literal != null && node.literal.match('^<(div|span) data-mx-maths="[^"]*">$') != null) {
-                    inMath = true;
-                    freeze_node(walker, node);
-                }
-            } else {
-                // math tags should only contain a single code block, with URL-escaped latex as fallback output
-                if (node.literal != null && node.literal.match('^(<code>|</code>|[^<>]*)$')) {
-                    freeze_node(walker, node);
-                // leave when span or div is closed
-                } else if (node.literal == '</span>' || node.literal == '</div>') {
-                    inMath = false;
-                    freeze_node(walker, node);
-                // this case only happens if we have improperly formatted math tags, so bail
-                } else {
-                    inMath = false;
-                }
-            }
-        }
-    }
-}
-
 function is_allowed_html_tag(node) {
+    if (node.literal != null &&
+        node.literal.match('^<((div|span) data-mx-maths="[^"]*"|\/(div|span))>$') != null) {
+        return true;
+    }
+
     // Regex won't work for tags with attrs, but we only
     // allow <del> anyway.
     const matches = /^<\/?(.*)>$/.exec(node.literal);
@@ -70,6 +35,7 @@ function is_allowed_html_tag(node) {
         const tag = matches[1];
         return ALLOWED_HTML_TAGS.indexOf(tag) > -1;
     }
+
     return false;
 }
 
@@ -199,9 +165,6 @@ export default class Markdown {
 */
         };
 
-        // prevent strange behaviour when mixing latex math and markdown
-        freeze_math(this.parsed);
-
         return renderer.render(this.parsed);
     }
 
diff --git a/src/editor/serialize.ts b/src/editor/serialize.ts
index 9f24cd5eb2..88fd1c90fc 100644
--- a/src/editor/serialize.ts
+++ b/src/editor/serialize.ts
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ import EditorModel from "./model";
 import { AllHtmlEntities } from 'html-entities';
 import SettingsStore from '../settings/SettingsStore';
 import SdkConfig from '../SdkConfig';
+import cheerio from 'cheerio';
 
 export function mdSerialize(model: EditorModel) {
     return model.parts.reduce((html, part) => {
@@ -51,18 +52,29 @@ export function htmlSerializeIfNeeded(model: EditorModel, {forceHTML = false} =
 
         md = md.replace(RegExp(displayPattern, "gm"), function(m, p1) {
             const p1e = AllHtmlEntities.encode(p1);
-            return `<div data-mx-maths="${p1e}"><code>${p1e}</code></div>`;
+            return `<div data-mx-maths="${p1e}"></div>`;
         });
 
         md = md.replace(RegExp(inlinePattern, "gm"), function(m, p1) {
             const p1e = AllHtmlEntities.encode(p1);
-            return `<span data-mx-maths="${p1e}"><code>${p1e}</code></span>`;
+            return `<span data-mx-maths="${p1e}"></span>`;
         });
     }
 
     const parser = new Markdown(md);
     if (!parser.isPlainText() || forceHTML) {
-        return parser.toHTML();
+        // feed Markdown output to HTML parser
+        const phtml = cheerio.load(parser.toHTML(),
+            { _useHtmlParser2: true, decodeEntities: false })
+
+        // add fallback output for latex math, which should not be interpreted as markdown
+        phtml('div, span').each(function() {
+            const tex = phtml(this).attr('data-mx-maths')
+            if (tex) {
+                phtml(this).html(`<code>${tex}</code>`)
+            }
+        });
+        return phtml.html();
     }
     // ensure removal of escape backslashes in non-Markdown messages
     if (md.indexOf("\\") > -1) {