Rosacea: What You Need To Know When Dealing With It

There are a lot of skin problems in the world but is perhaps more unpredictable than rosacea. Even with more than 46 million people affected in the world, nobody knows how it starts and how it can be cured. In fact some people who have rosacea do not even know that they have the skin problem because the symptoms are as regularly occurring as the symptoms of other diseases.

Rosacea is characterized by the reddening of the skin on the areas of the nose, forehead, chin and cheeks. Watery eyes may also developed as well as the appearance of blood vessels on the skin. Some patients think that they just have sunburn or are just easily flushed.

Usually these symptoms appear when triggers are present. Among the most common triggers are spicy food, exposure to sunlight and some skin products. Some people may also have to watch their diets since food products can be triggers too. Among those included in the list are meat products, veggies such as eggplants and beans, fruits like plums and of course, chocolate and other dairy products. Having all these as triggers of rosacea all the more complicates the problem. People cannot readily pinpoint which of these is triggering the problem. And without knowing the cause of their breakouts, they cannot hope to control them.

Because no one knows just how rosacea starts, there are a lot of treatments available to manage the problem. Remember though that rosacea cannot be cured. It is a lifelong problem that people can only manage. In fact, people who stop medication or treatment suffer from relapse after a few months. One of the ways to manage it is to use topical and oral medicines.

Topical medicines are usually the first to be prescribed because they have proven to be effective and do not have many side effects. One of the most common is the erythromycin which is often being prescribed to people with acne problems.

Oral medicines on the other hand should be taken carefully since they do have side effects especially with long term or prolonged use. Usually, if oral medications are effective, doctors prescribe them in combination with another treatment, often with laser treatments. Still, taking these oral medicines is closely monitored. Some medicines are not even recommended for prolonged use. There is a recommended number of months that it can be taken before it is exchanged with another form of treatmnent.

There are also medical procedures that are being done for people with rosacea problems. One of those procedures is the vascular laser procedure and the intense pulsed light procedure. These machines seem to be currently two of the best treatments of rosacea because they penetrate the skin and eliminates the redness that ensues. Some people get to have those symptoms completely removed for a long period of time. Of course the condition will likely occur again but at least patients are given a period of reprieve.

Another laser treatment being done for rosacea patients are with the use of CO2 lasers which removes excess tissues. The laser beam supposedly vaporize the tissue thus getting rid of the redness or at the very least, lessening the redness.