diff --git a/web/react/utils/markdown.jsx b/web/react/utils/markdown.jsx
index 12d6dd4249..848b1ea75c 100644
--- a/web/react/utils/markdown.jsx
+++ b/web/react/utils/markdown.jsx
@@ -6,7 +6,31 @@ const Utils = require('./utils.jsx');
 
 const marked = require('marked');
 
-export class MattermostMarkdownRenderer extends marked.Renderer {
+class MattermostInlineLexer extends marked.InlineLexer {
+    constructor(links, options) {
+        super(links, options);
+
+        // modified version of the regex that doesn't break up words in snake_case
+        // the original is /^[\s\S]+?(?=[\\<!\[_*`]| {2,}\n|$)/
+        this.rules.text = /^[\s\S]+?(?=__|\b_|[\\<!\[*`]| {2,}\n|$)/;
+    }
+}
+
+class MattermostParser extends marked.Parser {
+    parse(src) {
+        this.inline = new MattermostInlineLexer(src.links, this.options, this.renderer);
+        this.tokens = src.reverse();
+
+        var out = '';
+        while (this.next()) {
+            out += this.tok();
+        }
+
+        return out;
+    }
+}
+
+class MattermostMarkdownRenderer extends marked.Renderer {
     constructor(options, formattingOptions = {}) {
         super(options);
 
@@ -68,3 +92,15 @@ export class MattermostMarkdownRenderer extends marked.Renderer {
         return TextFormatting.doFormatText(text, this.formattingOptions);
     }
 }
+
+export function format(text, options) {
+    const markdownOptions = {
+        renderer: new MattermostMarkdownRenderer(null, options),
+        sanitize: true
+    };
+
+    const tokens = marked.lexer(text, markdownOptions);
+
+    return new MattermostParser(markdownOptions).parse(tokens);
+}
+
diff --git a/web/react/utils/text_formatting.jsx b/web/react/utils/text_formatting.jsx
index 2b6e6e14e2..6778d341aa 100644
--- a/web/react/utils/text_formatting.jsx
+++ b/web/react/utils/text_formatting.jsx
@@ -8,8 +8,6 @@ const Markdown = require('./markdown.jsx');
 const UserStore = require('../stores/user_store.jsx');
 const Utils = require('./utils.jsx');
 
-const marked = require('marked');
-
 // Performs formatting of user posts including highlighting mentions and search terms and converting urls, hashtags, and
 // @mentions to links by taking a user's message and returning a string of formatted html. Also takes a number of options
 // as part of the second parameter:
@@ -22,11 +20,8 @@ export function formatText(text, options = {}) {
     let output;
 
     if (!('markdown' in options) || options.markdown) {
-        // the markdown renderer will call doFormatText as necessary so just call marked
-        output = marked(text, {
-            renderer: new Markdown.MattermostMarkdownRenderer(null, options),
-            sanitize: true
-        });
+        // the markdown renderer will call doFormatText as necessary
+        output = Markdown.format(text, options);
     } else {
         output = sanitizeHtml(text);
         output = doFormatText(output, options);