Rosacea is a chronic inflammatory skin condition characterized by persistent facial redness and sensitivity and often visible capillaries, acne-like bumps, and thickened skin texture.
The team at Best Impression Med Spa in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, has answers to help you manage the condition.
To start, let’s look at the four primary types of rosacea:
This type is characterized by persistent redness, flushing, and visible blood vessels called telangiectasias.
With papulopustular rosacea, you experience redness, swelling, and acne-like breakouts.
This type leads to thickened skin and a bumpy texture, often affecting the nose.
Ocular rosacea irritates the eyes, leading to redness and swelling.
Rosacea can appear at any age, but it most commonly starts presenting in patients age 30 and older. Your rosacea may present in a number of the aforementioned ways. The exact cause is unknown, but it’s known to be linked to inflammatory and hereditary factors.
Unfortunately, there is no cure for rosacea. If you have it, you can expect to experience flare-ups throughout your life. However, we have a number of ways to help you manage your rosacea so you can tackle your symptoms today and in the future.
In our 30-plus years of practicing at Best Impression Med Spa, we have encountered many patients who are frustrated with the challenges of treating rosacea. Many of these individuals opt to cover up their symptoms with makeup.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with using makeup to cover rosacea (unless your cosmetics contain sensitizing and allergenic ingredients), we think you deserve a better solution. We’re committed to treating your rosacea at the root.
Before we discuss your treatment options for rosacea, let’s briefly discuss what we can do to prevent your symptoms from worsening and keep them at bay long-term. It’s important to work with your medical team to determine your particular rosacea triggers.
Rosacea is worsened by environmental aggressors like excessive sun exposure and sensitizing personal care ingredients or internal triggers like inflammation, alcohol intake, and stress. With summer approaching, make sure to moderate your sun exposure and wear sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 30.
Nowadays, there are more resources than ever to research skin care online and choose your own over-the-counter (OTC) treatments. We caution against doing this, however, especially when dealing with a condition like rosacea.
There are some fantastic active ingredients out there that we can use to treat rosacea, but people who have rosacea usually also have sensitive skin. This makes the condition trickier to treat, as we need to find topical products that will address the issue without sensitizing the skin.
That’s why it’s especially important to work with medical professionals like Dr. Vivian Hsu and Dr. Robert Mirabile to make sure you’re choosing the right treatment plan for you rather than going through the (sometimes literal) pain of trial and error without expert guidance.
There are also a few options for in-office treatments. Different forms of light-based procedures can improve your rosacea, depending on how the condition presents on your skin.
One of our favorite ways to effectively treat rosacea and other skin issues like sun damage, melasma, and general signs of aging is intense pulsed light (IPL) therapy. IPL is especially effective in eliminating the visible spider veins that can come with rosacea.
If you have a more severe case of rosacea and your skin can handle something stronger, we may opt for a laser treatment instead. In either case, we usually recommend a few rounds of treatment to tackle your particular skin issues.
If you’re in the Blue Bell area and would like more guidance on how to approach your unique case of diagnosed or suspected rosacea, we would love to speak with you. Contact us to set up a consultation and get one step closer to baring your skin with confidence.
