many people blush when they're excited
or embarrassed but if you have
persistent facial flushing you may be
showing one of the symptoms of the
common skin condition called rosacea
April it is rosacea Awareness Month so
joining us to discuss this dermatologist
dr. Jeff interesting good to have you in
to talk about this so listen what
exactly it is because it's just not
about blushing no solarization it's a
chronic skin condition where you see it
starts with redness and flushing in the
central face but then it can morph into
other types of variants so when when you
say flushing is it something that just
kind of happens and then disappears
again
yes yeah it kind of comes and goes and
there's triggers that can cause it so
people know about red wine alcohol right
hot liquids spicy foods caffeine emotion
stress these are the things that can
cause you to flush and then it goes away
but over time the redness becomes
persistent so you have rosy cheeks like
permanently what's the you know what do
we know about rosacea in terms of some
people getting it and some people know
what yeah so we don't really know what
causes it that's the problem so there's
lots of theories people have talked
about hormones sun exposure the immune
system bacteria and lately we're talking
about a demodex might it's a mite that
lives on our skin and the hair follicles
but we don't know if it causes it we
just know that in rosacea sufferers you
have more of those mites so it's a
target of treatment when we talk about
chronic rosacea in terms of the skin is
it I mean tell me about can you actually
see you know veins as a result of that
yeah so there's four types of rosacea
and that's what people don't know so the
first one is when you get the redness
and flushing and those people often get
little veins in their cheeks and they
often have sensitive skin and that's
more common in women and the second type
is when you get bumps and pimples like
this type here on the picture yeah so it
looks like acne but it's a little
different because there's redness around
it you have to be able to determine
which is which the third type is when
you get it in the eyes it's called block
yeah yeah you can get in the eyes called
ocular rosacea and you can't really see
it so much but it kind of looks or it
feels like a gritty sensation and
sometimes you can get inflammation of
the eyelids oh boy and then the fourth
type is when everyone's scared of that's
when we get the big fat nose yeah okay
and what's that as a result of because
we're taking a look at this yeah so so
this is a result of overact
of oil glands so the nose can become
like this one here for example it can be
quite large bulbous and there's lots of
oil glands there will it go back to
normally can you fix that what I mean is
you know can with treatment well the
treatment doesn't really were the only
way to get rid of that is to actually go
for surgery oh boy yeah but not
everybody gets that
tell me about common you know treatments
I guess for rosacea so because you have
to identify which type it is so the
bumps and pimples are easy to treat and
so is the ocular rosacea in the eyes
those respond to antibiotics and creams
okay the big fat nose is usually a
surgical one and the one that's the
hardest one to treat is the one where
you get redness and flushing because
that often only responds well to laser
and then and laser will do what does it
so lasers like shining a flashlight on
your skin and it targets the blood so it
heats it up and it kind of sticks the
blood vessel wall together so it kind of
eliminates the blood vessel so it
reduces the redness so once you have the
treatment and let's say you know you're
lucky and the treatment works it can it
come back well this is the problem for
rosacea usually starts in adulthood in
the 30s to 50s you're actually the
person that usually gets it people of
Eastern European descent versus Indians
or Asians but it kind of starts to
evolve and then eventually it plateaus
we don't have a ton of people in the
nursing home with rosacea so at some
point it starts to Plateau but we just
don't know when it's kind of an
individual thing you know and it's it
would seem that oh is this something you
know okay like you exacerbated I'm by
son or is it something that you know
it's of modern times
well I necessarily know it's not a
modern times because if you ever go to
the Louvre for example there's this
painting it's called an old man in his
grandson and the man is portrayed with a
big bulbous nose the big fat nose we're
talking about here is this painting and
this is in the loop that's in the Louvre
it's beside the Mona Lisa so I get
attracted to this where everybody else
goes yeah I go to this one but this is
from fourteen hundred and eighty wow so
it's been around for a long time so he's
had that condition of course
dermatologists would have recognized
that for that painting for doing we
might have helped him yeah all right
well it's fascinating doctor thank you
for coming in thanks so much for playing