08.01.12
Back to basics of rosacea skin care
New is not always better and nor is it always more healthy. Over the years the new and innovative approaches to rosacea treatment have often caused an exacerbation of the symptoms. The old classics of rosacea care often included oral antibiotics - these would for some work for awhile to address the issue of pimples and papules but after 4 to 6 months the bacteria builds a resistance to the antibiotic and it would then become ineffective at which time you would receive a prescription for a different antibiotic. Antibiotics have been so over used and abused that they are no longer effective and bacteria are evolving faster than science can create new antibiotics leading to problems of potentially epidemic proportions.
The down sides of this line of treatment were many. The very serious concerns of antibiotic resistance and the need for ever increasing forms of antibiotics as bacteria become resistant. The side effects of treatment that include skin rashes, skin redness, and sun-sensitivity – some of the very symptoms you were trying to treat in the first place!
Another outdated classic in the treatment of rosacea is treating the problem as a yeast infection with the Metronidazoles. At some point in history someone got the brilliant idea to smear vaginal yeast cream on their face and for some people, although read the product label – no one can tell you why – for some people it helps, for others it’s yet another cause of their symptoms as its side effects include skin rash and itching. Another important note - Metronidazole is listed as a human carcinogenic.
Use of laser therapy to treat spider veins. Zapping the veins to seal them and theoretically “heal” the appearance of spider veins is a stop-gap short term fix. The purpose of our blood vessels is to deliver oxygen and nutrients to our body and when we zap, seal or remove them from upper layers of the skin we are in effect stopping the life giving supply of oxygen and nutrients to the skin – basically we are killing off that portion of the skin. Luckily our body has a survival mode that kicks in to repair wounded or damaged organs. And the body will re-grow the blood vessels. The theory behind laser therapy is a good one – heal the vessels – it’s the method that is faulty.