Rosacea

Get help straight away if

These are uncommon, but they need same-day care — go to an emergency department, do not wait for an appointment.

Contact us promptly if

Not an emergency, but worth being seen sooner rather than waiting it out.

• Eyes that are gritty, sore, dry, unusually sensitive to light, or blurringRosacea affects the eyes in a large proportion of people, it is easily missed, and left alone it can affect sight. Worth being seen.
• Skin that flared badly after a steroid cream was stoppedStrong steroid creams settle rosacea briefly and then make it considerably worse. Do not restart it to fix the rebound; come and talk to us.

What usually happens

Rosacea is not adult acne, even though the bumps can look similar, and the treatments that work for acne can make rosacea worse. It is also not caused by drinking — alcohol triggers flushing in some people, which is a very different thing from being the cause, and the assumption follows people around unfairly.

The eyes are involved far more often than people expect. Dryness, grittiness and light sensitivity are easy to put down to screens or hay fever, and they are worth mentioning because they are treatable and because ignoring them is what causes lasting trouble.

Your own triggers matter more than any standard list. Heat, sun, alcohol, spicy food, exercise and stress are the usual suspects, but the pattern is individual — a few weeks of noting what preceded a flare is more useful than avoiding everything on a list.

Sun protection is one of the single most effective things available, and daily use makes more difference over a year than most treatments do.

The different features respond to different treatments: the bumps and pustules usually settle first, the background redness is slower, and the visible small vessels generally do not respond to creams at all. Knowing that in advance prevents a lot of disappointment at six weeks.

At your appointment

We will work out which features dominate for you — flushing, fixed redness, bumps and pustules, visible vessels, or thickened skin — because that decides the treatment rather than the diagnosis alone.

We will ask about your eyes even if you have not mentioned them.

We will go through triggers and skin care, including which everyday products commonly make rosacea worse.

We will agree how long to give a treatment before judging it, since most take six to twelve weeks to show what they can do.

Worth asking

• —Which type of rosacea do I mainly have?
• —Could my eye symptoms be part of this?
• —How long before I should expect to see a difference?
• —What should I be using on my face day to day?