What are some of the treatments for rosacea?

What are some of the treatments for rosacea?

Rebecca Fitzgerald (Dermatologist) gives expert video advice on: What can I do to help prevent rosacea?; What are some of the common rosacea triggers? and more...

One of the underlying things that trigger flares in rosacea are things that dilate the blood vessels and make them expand in the lower layers of skin. Since rosacea is a genetic thing, and not something that you can cure, we basically just try and control it. The redness in rosacea doesn't respond to medicines; that's something that's more addressed by surgical procedures such as laser. Other than that, the medical things that are used in rosacea are just to keep the inflammation down. You can use some topical medicines to prevent you from ever having flares of acne. Once the acne is there though, you need pills to get rid of the papules and pustules. As a general rule we use both; both the topical things to keep you from needing the pills, and the pills when you have a flare.