Rosacea

Liz Wilde had perfect skin until she hit her late thirties, when a sudden out break of a disfiguring skin disorder struck.

‘I has always taken my blemish-free skin for granted. It survived teenage acne and, later, far too many wine-fuelled evenings.

And then, one day in my late-thirties, I woke up with redness over my nose and cheeks. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I had rosacea, a highly sensitised skin condition that affects one in 10 people in the UK.

Since that morning four and half years ago, it has virtually ruled my life. And despite working in the beauty industry, it’s taken me until now to get it under control.

Initially, I put the flare-up down to a skin treatment I’d been having for a magazine article and used my clout as a beauty journalist tog et a speedy consultation with the dermatologist involved. He diagnosed rosacea, a condition I had only vaguely heard of, despite writing about skincare for over 14 years, and prescribed Rozex Cream. My skin began to break out in red bumps, which looked like the spots I’d escaped all those years ago. I started to panic.

Attending beauty launches with less-than-perfect skin made me feel like a failure. I imagined people thinking, “How can she advise others when she looks like that?” Or, even worse, that they were pitying me.

I went back to the dermatologist, who was concerned by my worsening condition, and prescribed me antibiotics. By this time, I had a permanent redness all over my face, with raised bumps that I would scrutinise in the mirror at any opportunity. It’s fair to say I had become obsessed.

With no improvements three months on, I turned to complimentary therapies, and there was no shortage of experts offering me a solution. On the advice of a homeopath, I downed tinctures at £25 a bottle and cut out potential trigger foods, such as tomatoes, yeast and dairy products, I drank aloe vera juice on waking, and honey in warm water before bed. I bought an ioniser to place by me radiators. I saw a naturopath, who gave me a dizzyingly long list of supplements, leaving me £200 worse off each visit. I also had reflexology massages and cranial osteopathy. As my bill rose to £1,000, my skin got progressively worse.

As did my social life. I could no longer ignore my skin’s adverse reaction to wine. Gone were the evenings spent sharing a bottle of red with my partner or friends. The minute I entered a heated room (therefore any bar or restaurant) my face began to burn. Add alcohol to the mix, and I would spend the entire night convinced everyone was staring at me. It hurt, too. I could feel the over-worked blood vessels throbbing. My partner tried to put my mind at ease when I asked, “Am I red yet?” (which was often), only to feel the force of my anger when I saw the truth in the toilet mirror. But I wasn’t angry with him, I was exasperated at my inability to find a cure for what I now feared was a permanent disfigurement.

What I saw in the mirror every morning set my mood for the day. Rather than fat days, I had red-faced days. I would look at myself and cry.

It was around this time that my partner and I split up. I can’t say that my rosacea was the cause, but it certainly didn’t make me relaxing company. I had gone from being a social animal who loved a night out, to someone who would rather sit in the freezing cold than risk turning on the radiators.

Lying in bed one morning, I was struck by a sudden realisation: “What if no one ever wants to go out with me again?” I had by now perfected my camouflage, but waking up bare-faces next to a new partner was unthinkable.

A work assignment took me to a facial massage expert. Before she took my make-up off, I warned her of the horrors beneath. Later, she sat me up, looked at me in the eye and gave me the best advice I had heard so far. “You have two legs, two arms, and a good brain and a kind heart,”she said sternly. “Does it really matter if your face is a little red?”

It proved to be the turning point. If I was going to have rosacea for the rest of my life, I had better learn to live with it. And that is what I did. I sought sensible skincare advice and stuck with it.

I trimmed down my £200 a month supplement habit to a multivitamin and Agnus Castus. I ditched the faddy diet, and although I knew drinking wine was never going to be the carefree experience it once was, I accepted that, after a night out, I would always need extra time to apply my make-up next morning.

Then I went one better. Rather than merely accepting my rosacea, I believed that perhaps my burning face was my body’s way of telling me that the way I was living my life was no longer good for me. And, slowly, a really strange thing happened. The more I calmed down, the more my skin calmed down, too.

One day a friend, who had know me at my most obsessed, recommended Intense Pulsed Light, treatment. From the first appointment, rosacea started to loosen its grip on my life. Five treatments on, I no longer dread looking in the mirror each morning. I still wear foundation every day, but if someone knocks on the door unexpectedly, I’m not ashamed to open it bare-faced. And there’s another bonus. Because IPL boosts collagen by 30% per cent, my skin now looks plump and healthy, and I’ve even started to get compliments on how good it looks. Something I’d begun to believe I’d never hear again.

What is rosacea?
Rosacea is an inflammatory facial skin disorder, thought to be hereditary, and common between the ages of 30 and 50. Women are three times more likely to suffer than men. The causes are unknown and it’s not contagious. It’s more common in people of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian origins.

Symptoms:
Facial flushing, redness and spots. Rosacea is not curable, but early treatment can prevent permanent disfigurement. It’s triggered by stress, alcohol, spicy food and exposure to heat.

Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) destroys the coloured pigment in red veins without damaging the surrounding tissue. It’s uncomfortable but bearable. Expect temporary redness and possible swelling. A course of five treatments costs £875 at the Private Clinic.

Source: Red