Rosacea: Types, Causes, Symptoms and Remedies

Rosacea and its symptoms are not exactly very well-known globally. This is ironic because this skin condition happens to affect millions of people. For example, in America alone, an estimated 16 million individuals have to live with the problem. Similar numbers of affected individuals replicate themselves across the world, including Canada.

While it may be obvious to a trained cosmetic professional, some people who have this skin condition have no idea that they even have it.

However, knowledge of rosacea and its symptoms is a crucial first step to treating this condition. Only when you know that you have it can you find out about the best treatment options for rosacea.

This is the information we are going to provide with this engaging read. In it, we will help you paint a picture of what rosacea looks like. More importantly, we will also cover the cause and the possible routes to flawless skin. Let’s get in!

What is Rosacea?

Before we go into full details about the symptoms of rosacea or the types of rosacea, it is important that you first understand what it is.

According to MedlinePlus, Rosacea is a chronic skin disease that affects millions of people worldwide every year. One of the main treatment options for rosacea is to employ various mechanisms to manage the symptoms of rosacea.

One of the most common symptoms is the breakout of red bumps on the skin. It usually shows up during flare-ups, coming and going for several weeks.

Types of Rosacea

As bad as this skin condition is, it doesn’t stop at the details you see in the definition. It still has four major subtypes that come with their peculiar traits, characteristics, and symptoms. They are:

Erythematotelangiectatic Rosacea

Besides being a mouthful, this type of rosacea also happens to be the most popular of all four. By this, we don’t necessarily mean it is the type that affects people the most. It’s just the one people have the most knowledge about.

ETR (erythematotelangiectatic rosacea) can leave its victims dealing with symptoms of rosacea. These include symptoms like flushing and facial redness.

The trademark areas that this form of rosacea affects the most are the cheeks, forehead and nose. But, it’s also possible to experience redness on your scalp. The same goes for different parts of the body around the face, like the chin and neck. More often than not, the condition spreads due to poor management.

In the infant stages of erythematotelangiectatic rosacea, you may only notice redness in a few parts of your face. It may also come with a few blood vessels that look dilated now and then. But, one of the real strengths of the condition is looking unserious enough to be ignored.

If ignored or improperly managed, the symptoms will progress and grow. Eventually, you will have extensive flare-ups very often and over large areas. The worst part is that the symptoms may never clear up at some point.

The redness of the face and the presence of visible blood vessels make the condition easily recognizable. Beyond them, people also report feeling warm, a tingling sensation, stinging or even swelling. In other cases, it’s possible to experience dry, scaly, skin.

Papulopustular Rosacea

If you’ve done research about the symptoms of rosacea and its types, you’ve probably heard of this one. It is alternatively known as acne rosacea. It often causes facial inflammation and redness with visible spider veins across the face. All these are terrible enough as it stands, but the condition doesn’t stop there.

It earns its alternative name by coming along with breakouts that strongly resemble acne. Acne can be associated with different pimples like blackheads, pustules, whiteheads, and papules. However, papulopustular rosacea almost always causes substantially large and painful blemishes. They’re known as pustules and papules, and they grow deep into the skin.

Like virtually every other type of rosacea, the blemishes pick the center of the face as their concentration area. But, they may also show up on the scalp and neck of the victim. In particularly severe and unsavoury cases, it also impacts the shoulders and chest.

Now, if you’ve had any experience with acne, you’ll know that it mostly develops during the teen years of its victims. But, papulopustular rosacea can affect adults, especially middle-aged ones.

Apart from the pimples, papulopustular rosacea sufferers have noticeably sensitive skin. It may sting or burn. To top it all off, they may have extremely dry or oily patches of skin. These patches may then become scaly or thick with a rough, hard feel, referred to as plaques.

Phymatous Rosacea

If you’ve ever asked, “what does rosacea look like,” this type should paint a pretty good picture for you. It borrows features from the papulopustular rosacea and makes the skin look thick with initial plaque breakouts. As time goes by, the skin becomes increasingly bumpy, and it starts to protrude.

People often describe the texture of their phymatous rosacea skin as being similar to scar tissue. More often than not, individuals with this subtype of rosacea develop a sister condition known as rhinophyma.

This condition affects men and women but is more common in women. Almost all the time, it develops as a result of untreated or poorly managed rosacea. Apart from the buildup of extra skin, this rosacea leaves traces of redness and visible blood vessels.

It can also cause your pores to look visibly larger than they should. It is technically a very severe form of rosacea. But, it is also significantly less common than the others.

Ocular Rosacea

As you can probably imagine, “ocular” refers to anything that has to do with the eyes. So, you will be right to guess that ocular rosacea affects the eyes. It usually leads to redness and inflammation inside and around the eyes.

People who have ocular rosacea may notice that their eyes are bloodshot or the surrounding areas are swollen. Apart from that, they may get bumps on their eyelids that look a lot like styes. In addition to that, they may have burning, watery, or irritated eyes that constantly feel like dust got in.

They may also notice a general dryness and heightened sensitivity in the eyes. In a few other cases, the condition can lead to blurred vision and/or photosensitivity. This means they’ll have difficulty focusing on bright lights.

Most of the time, ocular rosacea is diagnosed improperly. The reason is that medical professionals cannot easily link the skin condition and the eyes as an affected area. But, some of the symptoms that show that an individual has rosacea instead of common eye issues include:

• Visible blood vessels around the eyes and eyelids
• Redness, swelling, or itchy skin around the yes
• Cysts on the eyes
• Symptoms you’ll find in other types of rosacea

Related Article: Top Causes and Treatments for Rosacea

Symptoms of Rosacea

The symptoms of rosacea do not exactly follow a straight pattern. That is, they can differ from one person to the other. These symptoms of rosacea, however, seem to be the most frequently occurring across virtually all patients:

Consistent skin discoloration

This discoloration often resembles a blush or sunburn. Unfortunately, unlike both of those things, this one doesn’t go away. This discoloration usually shows up with several hundred tiny blood vessels close to the skin’s surface.

Flushing

This is another type of discolouration. But, instead of the skin becoming lighter or redder, it turns dark temporarily. This symptom may spread to the chest and neck with the affected area feeling uncomfortably hot.

Thickened skin

Your skin may become thicker when there’s too much skin tissue. This particular symptom of rosacea can often affect the nose, and, more often than not, it affects men more than women.

Visible blood vessels

Also known as telangiectasia or spider veins, this symptom usually affects the bridge of the nose, the cheek, and other areas of the central face.

Pimples and skin bumps

In some people, acne-like bumps that are red and small may show up on the skin. They sometimes contain pus.

Irritated eyes

People who have rosacea may experience water or bloodshot eyes as a part of the symptoms of rosacea. Usually, their eyelids become swollen and red. Styes also show up occasionally, and in rare cases, their vision may become blurred.

Apart from all these, there’s also the probability of experiencing a few secondary symptoms of rosacea. They include:

• Stinging or burning sensations on the skin
• Rough or dry facial skin
• Facial swelling from excess proteins and fluids leaking out of the blood vessels

More often than not, rosacea affects people with lighter skin tones. But, it can also affect darker people. Here are a few symptoms of rosacea in people with darker skin tones:

• Swollen or dry skin
• A warm feeling more often than not
• Consistent breakouts that resemble acne
• Yellowish-brown, hard bumps around the eyes, mouth, or both
• A stinging or burning sensation when using skincare products
• Patches of dusky brown discoloration in the skin
• Swollen skin on the cheeks, chin, nose, or forehead

Possible Causes of Rosacea

As we mentioned earlier, experts across the world are not entirely sure what causes rosacea exactly. However, they can narrow it down to the following factors:

Demodex folliculorum

This is a skin mite that spends most of its life on the skin. Usually, it doesn’t cause any problems. But, it is suspected to be one of the causes because people who have rosacea often have more of these mites than those who don’t. Experts aren’t sure whether the mites cause rosacea or the rosacea increases them. But, they’re still a prime consideration.

Helicobacter pylori

This is a gut bacterium. Its primary function is the stimulation of the production of bradykinin. Bradykinin is a small polypeptide that causes blood vessels to dilate. Some experts believe this bacterium may have a hand in the development of rosacea.

Abnormalities in blood vessels

Skin specialists worldwide theorize that abnormalities in facial blood vessels can cause spider veins and facial flushing.

Family history

Several people who are living with rosacea have a relative who has the condition too. This automatically translates to the possibility of a genetic component.

Risk Factors Associated with Rosacea

The causes of rosacea aren’t very well-known. But, certain factors can increase your risk of getting it. They are:

• Being between the ages of 30 and 50

• Having fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes
• A family history of the condition, however small
• Having Scandinavian or Celtic ancestors
• Women are more likely to develop this condition than men. But, men get it with more severe symptoms.

Rosacea Triggers

Dietary factors can affect the symptoms of rosacea. The following beverages and foods may worsen the symptoms of rosacea if you already have it:

• Caffeine

• Hot beverages and foods
• Dairy products
• Alcohol like wine and liquor
• Foods rich in cinnamaldehyde, e.g. tomatoes, citrus fruits, and chocolate
• Seasonings that contain capsaicin like hot sauce, cayenne pepper and red pepper

Staying away from one or more of these foods will help. At the very least, it will slow down the possibility of flare-ups and assist in rosacea control. However, the best option is to seek out rosacea treatment options in Toronto.

Besides these, a few other factors worsen rosacea by raising blood flow to the skin’s surface. They are:

• Extremely high or low temperatures

• Anger, stress, anxiety, or embarrassment
• Humidity, sunlight, and wind
• Vigorous exercise
• Chronic medical conditions like hypertension
• Saunas and hot baths
• Acute medical conditions like cold, fever, or cough
• Corticosteroids and high blood pressure drugs

What is the Best Treatment for Rosacea?

To manage rosacea symptoms, the following treatment options will prove useful:

Venus VIVA Skin Rejuvenation

To understand how this treatment works, you must first understand what collagen is. Collagen is a protein that your body produces for your skin. Alongside elasticin, this protein is responsible for maintaining proper skin health.

It helps to repair damaged tissues. It also improves and maintains elasticity, and keeps your skin generally healthy. When it is depleted for several reasons, your skin becomes more prone to wear. Without collagen, these skin challenges won’t be fixed speedily.

Venus viva skin rejuvenation uses radiofrequency waves to cause bits of targeted damage. It does this to the deeper layers of your skin. Typically, Venus Viva does this through radio frequency waves.

In doing so, it stimulates the production of collagen. When more collagen is produced, it helps you to repair the damage caused by rosacea. So, your skin looks significantly better than it used to before the treatment.

Laser Treatment

This helps to reduce the presence of visible blood vessels associated with rosacea. A typical laser treatment will use intense pulsed light to shrink these blood vessels.

Now, the process can be a bit discomforting. But, most people do not need anesthesia because the discomfort is well within bearable ranges.

Beyond shrinking the blood vessels, laser treatment can also help to remove excess skin. Although this process may be a tad more complicated, it is also a great way to manage rosacea.

Isotretinoin

It is also known as Accutane. This is an oral medication that severe rosacea sufferers use. It’s usually the option when other treatments are proving unresponsive. It prevents the skin from making oil. Thus, reducing the symptoms associated with rosacea.

However, it is noteworthy that this treatment is incredibly powerful. It can come with some pretty serious side effects. You should not use it without proper supervision if you must use it at all.

Antibiotics

Antibiotics that are re-applied orally can have effects that will reduce inflammation. They usually give results much faster than topical antibiotics. A few examples include minocycline, erythromycin, and tetracycline.

Tetracycline, for example, helps to reduce eye symptoms to the bare minimum. Doxycycline reduces dryness, blurred vision, photosensitivity, and itching.

Eye drops

As you can imagine, these are primarily designed to help relieve eye symptoms. An example of a prescription eye drop is blephamide. It is steroid-based and can help to alleviate the symptoms of ocular rosacea.

Related Article: Top Treatment Options for Forehead Wrinkles in Vaughan

Get Rid of Rosacea Today

By all means, rosacea is a pretty serious skin condition. It often leaves its victims dealing with it for quite a bit of time. One of the most common symptoms of rosacea is redness in the affected area. We have also been able to highlight some other less common symptoms.

The good news is, rosacea is treatable. With support from a professional medical aesthetician, you can undergo designated treatments to help relieve the symptoms. Here at Canada MedLaser, we can be your partner in the battle against rosacea. Contact us today to earn a FREE consultation session with any of our highly trained medical aestheticians!