How is Rosacea Treated?

Seeing a qualified dermatologist is the best way to treat rosacea, since over-the-counter treatments and home remedies may actually worsen your skin’s redness and acne-like outbreaks. It’s essential to have a doctor assess your skin to determine which type of rosacea you have, which elements of your diet (such as spicy foods) may be exacerbating your condition, and which treatment options would be best for you.

Your dermatologist can ease your discomfort and lessen the redness to the point where your rosacea is undetectable to others, and your self-confidence thus improves. Finally, you have a solution to your worsening rosacea problem.

Early diagnosis and treatment can control your symptoms and often stop your rosacea from progressing in severity. Advanced cases can be difficult, and sometimes impossible, to treat.

When your dermatologist identifies which type or types of rosacea you have, a custom-tailored treatment plan will be created for you. Since patients with rosacea often have sensitive skin, medications and treatments must be carefully selected by an experienced physician to prevent any irritation and discomfort. Your doctor may prescribe an oral antibiotic to calm your skin’s outbreak, and you may be given a barrier-repair emollient to be applied to your skin several times a day. With your skin readied for the next steps, your doctor may prescribe a topical anti-inflammatory medication such as a retinoid, metronidazole, azelaic acid or sodium sulfacetamide.

Topical creams take some time to work on rosacea’s redness-causing capillary breakage, so it’s important to expect this to be a process, and not an instant fix. You might also find that your sensitive skin experiences stinging, itching or irritation from these medications, and if you’re experiencing too much discomfort, you should contact your doctor for a different course of treatment.

When using a topical retinoid, you might experience warmth, a slight stinging, and extra redness, which is often to be expected. Some skin peeling may also occur. While using this type of medication, sunscreen application is essential, since the medication will make you more sensitive to the sun.

Another way to treat rosacea is Electrocautery, which involves numbing the skin where blood vessels are visible, and treating the skin with a safe and effective electric current. Your doctor will then scrape away the treated skin. This treatment usually requires more than one treatment, with your dermatologist assessing your skin’s improvement as it heals, to decide if an additional cauterization is needed.

Laser treatments can also solve your redness and visible blood vessels by focusing a beam of light on the broken capillaries to heat and destroy them without damaging surrounding areas, with an average of four to eight laser or light therapy treatments scheduled over the course of a year to reduce redness. You can expect blood vessels to be less visible after two laser or light therapy treatments. Laser treatments may produce temporary swelling, redness or bruising for a short period of time.

Your rosacea may be a thing of the past, with your doctor’s expertise, choice of treatment and your self-care after treatment.