Hello everybody! Welcome back to our channel, I’m Dr Amel Ibrahim from City Skin Clinic. Today I
thought we'd talk about rosacea. This is a skin problem that we get a few questions about
because it's very difficult to treat and so I thought it would be a good thing to share a little
bit about the background and the causes and what treatment options there are. Before I continue, if
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like with all our videos, I’ll leave links to the relevant pages to this on our website,
as well as any other interesting literature from the web that I think would be useful for anyone
who wants to find out more about rosacea. So what is rosacea? Rosacea is a skin problem
and it's characterized by redness in the skin and also small bumps in the skin, so pimples. The way
you distinguish it from acne, it's a couple of things. One is rosacea
has a canucker, it is usually focused around the nose and the t-zone area and that's one
of its characteristics. The other is the redness is always present, which isn't the case in acne,
but sometimes in milder cases they can be confused with each other and there might be a little bit of
overlap. Rosacea can happen in men and women and it can happen across a range of skin tones,
anyone can get it, however, it's more commonly seen in people with lighter skin.
Unfortunately. there isn't really a known cause for rosacea, which is one of the
reasons why it's quite tricky to treat. With that being said, people often
have triggers for their rosacea. It's something that may not be there all the
time and there are certain triggers. Triggers like environmental exposure. So sometimes
someone being in a very hot kind of environment, might trigger their rosacea. You might also have
medications, there are some blood pressure medications that can trigger rosacea.
Also some people find certain cosmetics can trigger their rosacea. So it's a whole
range of things, it has nothing to do with cleanliness or keeping your skin clean, like acne,
there are environmental triggers and then there are triggers as you’re genetically
predisposed to it. With rosacea, another trigger is stress, and hormone related as well.
The reason I mention these triggers is, although we don't know what the cause of rosacea is,
it's important to know that there are triggers and if you can identify anything
that's triggering the rosacea or making it worse, then you can at least control these
triggers, and in doing so control the rosacea a bit, the flare-ups of it.
With rosacea, there are a range in the symptoms, from mild cases, and I’m just
putting up some pictures to illustrate, but also chronic rosacea, that's
been going on for a long time, can lead to rhinophyma, which is where basically you get
the thickening of the skin, you get these nodules, in these bumps around the nose and this appearance
can be quite distressing for some people. This is something that isn't acute,
it doesn't happen suddenly, but this is something to be aware about as a final path of rosacea.
So, if there aren't any known causes, how do you go about treating rosacea? Well,
number one is, firstly, you identify the triggers and if there are obvious triggers that make
it worse or make it come on, then trying to stop these. Whether it's stress,
trying to manage stress, if it's a medication, going to speak to your doctor and seeing if
there's a different medication. Some of the blood pressure medications or medications that
affect blood vessels may trigger rosacea. Then, in terms of stuff that you can do,
treatments-wise, well, there are some creams that can help with rosacea. For example,
azelaic acid is something that you can get, a weaker prescription of it just over the counter,
from the drugstore or you can have a prescription for it, and azelaic acid can help. It takes
a few weeks, but it can help with the rosacea. There are also other things like antibiotic cream,
metronidazole cream, that can also help with rosacea. Again, when you're thinking about
these things that are medication-wise, it's really important to go and see a dermatologist
and discuss it with them. Other things are, if I guess the topical treatment, so creams
that you can put on your face, if those aren't helping, or if your case is quite advanced,
then there are other things. Antibiotics, again, some of the antibiotics
that can be used for acne, like doxycycline, these may be tried in rosacea and whilst
they may not help with the redness, they will help with the pimples and the bumps on the skin.
That's the same with the azelaic acid and the creams. Something that can help with
both the the pimples and actually also the redness and the bumps,
laser therapy is really something that we know does work. Obviously it depends on the type of
laser and you will have to go to a a doctor or a medical practitioner who is
comfortable and experienced in treating rosacea specifically.
But laser therapy can help by resurfacing the skin by shrinking the blood vessels
and that can help with rosacea as well. At the other end of that,
for things like rhinophyma, laser, but also surgery may be needed to help
with this treatment because again, it's quite extensive. So really, identifying
which treatment works is going to be dependent on what the triggers for the rosacea are and what stage
it's at. Other things that you could do in terms of reducing the redness itself, there are
skin care products. Firstly, avoid any skin care that's really going to irritate your skin
because that could trigger rosacea, but you may be looking at skincare products designed
to calm the skin. In a way, the sort of treatments that you might find useful and people
with sensitive skin. There are some skincare products, even drugstore ones,
like Bioderma, that offer a rosacea range. So having a look to see whether those products can
help reduce the redness at least and then with the pimples, maybe treating them in a similar
way to acne, in terms of maybe using azelaic acid, reducing inflammation in the skin,
that can help as well. It's really important to remember that all of these treatments
will take time to work. With rosacea, just because you've identified a trigger
and you've stopped it, the rosacea's not going to go away immediately and the same with any of the
either the creams or even laser, that's going to take time before you see results. So it's really
important that, if you commit down a path for these treatments, you carry on with it
and it may take several weeks before you start to see something. If the appearance of the rosacea
is particularly upsetting to you, there are also cosmetic makeup that can help
with covering it. Again, it's really important when looking at makeup, look at brands that
are used for people with sensitive skin, that may avoid triggering a breakout
of rosacea and also look at non-comedogenic makeup. Make sure it's more water-based than
oil-based and if you're looking to cover things that are red, having concealers that are designed
to work against redness, so perhaps have a green base, that cancels out the redness. The other thing
that's really important, I always mention, but in rosacea it's really important
also, is protecting your skin against the sun. so We know that heat and also UV light can trigger
or worsen rosacea so it's really important to wear sunscreen whilst you're out and again,
look for a sunscreen that is designed to use for skin that's a little bit sensitive,
sunscreen that's designed for someone with acne prone skin might be useful, but really wear SPF
50 or above whenever you're outside, even if it's not sunny and that will help. I hope this
is useful, I know it's always disappointing when there are things where we don't know the cause and
so we don't have an adequate treatment, but there are some treatments that can help with rosacea.
It's important to stick to a course of treatment and see it all the way through, unless it's
making things worse. It's important to identify the triggers for your rosacea and to know
that there are things that can help, but it's a matter of being patient and and
not worsening it by being really stressed about this, can be a vicious cycle.
That's all I have to say right now for rosacea, but please let me know if you have any
questions in the comments below, about rosacea or any other skin or aesthetic questions. Don't
forget to subscribe to our channel and please, give this video a thumbs up. Until next time!