Nikki Sommer, a nurse practitioner with Key West Surgical Group joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning for Medical Matters.
Rosacea affects a lot of people, but there is help.
Sommer said, “It’s a very common but misunderstood skin condition. A lot of people will think it’s sensitive skin or they have acne. But it’s actually a different condition that we can treat and manage once we understand it, once you can get the individual who has it to understand the process.”
This is a chronic inflammatory skin condition, mainly affecting the central face.
Sommer said, “It’s persistent redness flushing. You have little, red blood vessels, and usually they’re very prominent in the cheek and the nose, and can be on the forehead as well. That is rosacea.”
It’s treatable and manageable, but not curable.
Sommer said, “That is one of the difficult aspects of the disease that people have a hard time grasping because they want to be rid of it, but you really can only treat it and control it. It’s not curable. It’s persistent redness that doesn’t go away, like you constantly have a rosy cheek appearance, flushing or blushing easily. You see somebody when they laugh, if they have redness in their cheeks all the time, and then if they get emotional or get angry or sad or red, you will see their face get flushed even more. There’s different types of rosacea, so you can even have acne, like bumps on your skin, except the difference between them and acne is they don’t have those whiteheads or those comedomes. They just kind of stay like a raised bump. And you might have burning or stinging to your skin. Your skin feels more sensitive.”
What causes rosacea?
Sommer said, “There isn’t a single cause, but it is an overactive inflammatory response. You just have sensitive blood vessels, genetics and environmental triggers play a really big factor. So if someone in your family had rosacea and you have that redness in your skin that doesn’t seem to go away and it’s sensitive, they had rosacea. You had rosacea. Environmental triggers are really everything when it comes to rosacea. So this is where it gets tricky, especially down here, sun exposure. We can’t get away from it. And because the weather is so good down here, all year long, everybody wants to be in the sun and heat. So we’re coming into our very toasty and roasty season.”
Alcohol and spicy foods can also trigger rosacea.
Sommer said, “Along with stress, hot drinks and harsh skin care products. So you don’t want to use scrubs. People think I need to exfoliate my skin if you have this condition. That’s not really the best approach to keep it under control.”
How is rosacea diagnosed?
Sommer said, “It’s really just a clinical diagnosis. When we look at your skin, we take your history and your symptoms. There’s no lab test. It’s really just recognizing a pattern. And over the last I guess, six or seven years that I’ve been working with people with skin conditions, this is one of the things I’ve seen the most that when we got into lasers, our very first laser didn’t treat this condition, and everybody would come in and complain about the redness in their face. So it was like, oh, this is a real big issue down here. So that’s why I decided to talk about it. Especially recently, I’ve had a lot of people come in and they have frustration with it, because it’s hard for them to accept that it’s not going to go away, but they have to have a lifestyle and manage it pretty much on a daily basis, to keep it calm.”
Combination therapy can help.
Sommer said, “Lifestyle and skin care, again, identify and avoid those triggers. I know it’s hard to be out of the sun. I know it’s hard not to drink alcohol, especially in this environment and heat, so try and keep your skin as cool as possible. We talk about the sun, the highest temperature it usually occurs after noon. Don’t be out and about during that time for long periods of time. Gentle skin care, again, no harsh scrubs and daily SPF, that is non negotiable. That means it should be part of your routine. When you get up in the morning, before you leave the house, you need to put SPF on. And even if you’re not going to the pool or the beach on the boat and you’re going to lounge in the sun, you’re going to be in the sun because we are in the sun every day, and you are still exposed to the sun in your car.”
There are prescription topical treatments as well.
Sommer said, “A lot of people come in and said, I’ve tried all of these, and they will name them, ivermectin, bromonadine gel and Oxymetazoline cream. These are all prescribed to help calm that inflammation down. However if you don’t stick with it or avoid those other lifestyle triggers that we talked about, it’s not going to really work as well as if you do all the steps.”
Are oral medications available too?
Sommer said, “Yes, for severe cases where they have, like those really irritated acne bumps, they will prescribe either doxycycline and minocycline, even low doses of isotreno and this will help calm the inflammation from the inside out.”
Laser therapy could also help.
Sommer said, “We have the elite IQ, which targets blood vessels and redness, and then the ultra helps improve the skin quality and inflammation. So a lot of times we combine them together to keep that redness and inflammation down. Another good device that we don’t have what other people have in town is the IPL. It’s intense pulse light that also targets the blood vessels and the redness the inflammation down. But again, this won’t work alone. It’s a routine, it’s maintenance. It’s doing all the steps to get you to reduce that redness, shrink the blood vessels and improve overall skin tone.”
What happens if you don’t treat rosacea?
Sommer said, “It can progress and become more permanent. Like the vessels are very pronounced. They’re more visible, and the skin can thicken over time. There is a condition where, and it’s more men, they get really thick skin on their nose, and it’s bumpy, and they have like, this bulbous nose. It is from untreated rosacea, really, over the years. Don’t assume it’s acne and treat it as acne, because then a lot of times people think they need to scrub their skin with like salicylic acid or a harsh scrub, because it’s oil underneath their skin. It’s not. So get it evaluated by a professional so you know you’re on the right treatment.”
For more information on how Key West Surgical Group can help, click here: https://www.keywestsurgicalgroup.com/