Unwelcome Blush: Introducing Acne Rosacea

Actually, the term to use is not acne rosacea, but simply rosacea, because this is not strictly a form of acne. It is more an acne-like eruption that makes your face look like it’s in a permanently blushing state. The weirdest thing (in my opinion) about rosacea is that it mostly affects white-skinned people in northwestern Europe, and is sometimes described as the ‘curse of the Celts’ by the Irish. So you may get rosacea simply because you’re born into a certain community? Well, kind of.

What follows here is a summation of the reading I have done on the subject: the forst symptom of rosacea is erythema (redness) on the face across the cheeks, nose, or forehead, and less commonly on the neck and chest. Gradually, you will notice other symptoms like telangiectasia (I haven’t worked out how to pronounce that but it means dilation of certain facial blood vessels), small red bumps and pustules, red eyes, burning and stinging, and if you are unfortunate enough, even a red nose.

Lots of people confuse rosacea with acne vulgaris, but the really bad news is that rosacea and acne can co-exist. Also, rosacea seems more a woman thing, because it is almost three times more common in women than in men, and usually develops between the ages of 30 and 60. As compensation, however, when men develop rosacea it tends to be more severe.

There are various sub-types of rosacea, and it obviously requires an expert to spot which ones you’ve got (you may get more than one, naturally). The commonest triggers for rosacea include anxiety, sunburn, and abrupt changes in the surrounding environment. The grim news here is that some acne medications may also bring on a rosacea attack, so watch out for more on this topic, as well as for ways of treating rosacea.
 

Image fsource: http://www.dermatlas.org/