Rosacea

For a lay person:

Rosacea is a long-term skin condition that mainly affects the face, causing flushing, lasting redness and sometimes pimple-like bumps. It is most common in adults over 30 with fair skin. Triggers include sunlight, heat, alcohol, spicy food and stress.

For a trained medical person:

A chronic inflammatory disorder involving neurovascular dysregulation, innate immune activation and Demodex mites, with erythematotelangiectatic, papulopustular, phymatous and ocular features. Diagnosis is clinical. Management includes trigger avoidance and sun protection, topical agents such as ivermectin, metronidazole, azelaic acid or brimonidine, oral doxycycline for papulopustular disease, and laser or surgery for telangiectasia and phyma.

In Chinese medicine:

Liu and Tseng's textbook differentiates this condition into these patterns: Blood-Heat Steaming Lung; Accumulated Heat in Lung and Stomach; Qi Stagnation and Blood Stasis. Treatment follows the pattern a patient presents with, not the Western diagnosis alone.

When to get help: See a doctor if your eyes are painful, red or your vision changes, as eye rosacea can damage the eye. Steroid creams can worsen rosacea, and some herbal creams have been found to contain undeclared steroids.