Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Not acne and not a question of cleansing — the vessels in the face react excessively.
Also known as: rosacea · facial redness
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
A chronic skin condition of the central face — cheeks, nose, forehead, chin. It often starts with flushing that comes and goes and later persists; plus visible fine vessels, burning or stinging sensations and, in later stages, inflammatory bumps and pustules. These are often mistaken for acne — but unlike acne, blackheads are absent. Typical triggers are sun, heat and cold, spicy food, hot drinks, alcohol and stress; a personal trigger diary helps more than any general list. Key to treatment: consistent sun protection and gentle skincare. The condition is well controllable, though not curable. It has nothing to do with poor hygiene.
Redness of the middle of the face with yellowish greasy scales on the sides of the nose and the brows speaks for both existing side by side — and they are treated differently.
Sun, heat, cold, sport, alcohol, spicy food, hot drinks, stress: the list is long but personally short. Two weeks of notes usually reveal two or three triggers of one’s own.
Ultraviolet light is the most frequently named trigger of all. Mineral filters with zinc or titanium are usually better tolerated by irritated skin than chemical ones.
Lukewarm water, mild cleansing without soap, dab dry instead of rubbing, no scrubs, no alcohol in toners, few products. With this skin less is nearly always more.
Short term it calms things, but used over weeks the redness usually comes back stronger as soon as one stops. For long-term treatment there are preparations of their own for this condition.
Burning, a feeling of grit, reddened lid margins, stuck lashes in the morning: in many the eye is affected too, often before the skin stands out. Warm lid compresses and lid-margin care are the first step here.
A cool, damp cloth on cheeks and forehead shortens the flush for many. Not ice-cold and not for long — the cold stimulus itself can otherwise become a trigger.
Metronidazole and ivermectin creams lower the inflammation and the number of mites; brimonidine narrows the vessels for a few hours, often with more redness afterwards. The visible vessels remain — the laser treats those. The predisposition itself is untouched.
About five in a hundred adults are affected, usually from thirty and with a fair skin type. A local treatment is judged after eight to twelve weeks; the redness takes longer than the pustules. Widened vessels do not recede and need laser or light, usually two to four sessions. The most common triggers are heat, sun, alcohol, spicy food and stress — different for each person, which is why a diary over four weeks helps more than a general list.
Flushing of cheeks, nose, forehead and chin, set off by warmth, sun, alcohol or spicy food. Over years the redness increasingly stays, with visible fine vessels.
The skin reacts sensitively to creams, sun protection and water with burning. Itching rather does not belong to it — that sets the picture apart from an eczema.
Inflamed red lumps and pus-filled spots in the middle of the face, but no blackheads. It is exactly this absence of blackheads that separates the picture from acne.
Burning, a feeling of grit, reddened lid margins, stuck lashes in the morning, recurring styes. In some this comes before the skin signs — and is therefore not connected.
A nose that slowly becomes bulbous and large-pored arises from an overgrowth of oil glands and connective tissue. It has nothing to do with alcohol — this attribution often burdens people more than the skin itself.
Redness across cheeks and nose can also belong to an autoimmune disease; ANA tells them apart.
With flushing episodes plus palpitations, sweating and weight loss, the thyroid is checked.
Skin and lining renew themselves quickly and need zinc for it. With places that heal badly, cracked corners of the mouth and frequent skin infections a lack is a serious possibility.
Without vitamin C no stable collagen forms — the wound closes but holds less well. With a very one-sided diet, smoking and alcohol the intake is often tighter than assumed.
Steers the horn-forming of the skin. Too little makes it rough and dry, too much over longer periods harms liver and bone — and in pregnancy a strict upper limit applies.
Every healing needs building material. Anyone eating little during an illness loses exactly that — a sufficient amount spread across the day belongs to the treatment.
30 mg elemental zinc a day over 3 months has been studied in small trials, with inconsistent results. Above 40 mg a day over months it disturbs copper uptake.
Studied for dry eye in rosacea — 1–2 g EPA+DHA a day over 3–6 months. It does not act on the redness of the face.
Here the other way round: niacin in the nicotinic acid form triggers a flush — heat and redness in the face for 15–30 minutes. Anyone with rosacea picks the nicotinamide form or leaves it.
The flushes of menopause and the redness of rosacea reinforce each other: both widen the same vessels in the face. This is why the condition often becomes noticeable for the first time in this phase of life.
Cortisone cream on the face improves rosacea briefly and worsens it markedly afterwards — after stopping, the redness comes back stronger. That is one of the most important points of all in this condition.
In surveys hot drinks, spicy food, alcohol — red wine above all — and heat lead the list. They differ from person to person; a diary over 4 weeks shows one’s own.
In rosacea small intestinal overgrowth is found more often than average. In small studies treating it also improved the skin — the link is observed, not proven.
Often recommended, yet it often further irritates the sensitive rosacea skin.