Do you strug­gle with red and/or swollen skin? Fa­cial red­ness is very com­mon and can be caused by a host of con­di­tions—from rosacea to al­ler­gic re­ac­tions, or sim­ply ex­tra blood rush­ing to the skin’s sur­face to fight off ir­ri­tants and en­cour­age heal­ing. Fa­cial red­ness caus­es many peo­ple self-es­teem and self-con­fi­dence is­sues, and is of­ten detri­men­tal to pro­fes­sion­al and so­cial in­ter­ac­tion.

There are med­ical and non-med­ical ap­proach­es to im­prov­ing fa­cial red­ness. Med­ical ther­a­py in­cludes the ap­pli­ca­tion of top­i­cal creams/gels that pre­vent the tiny ves­sels in the skin from be­com­ing larg­er and cre­at­ing the ap­pear­ance of red­ness. Some­times the use of a pulsed dye laser or In­tense Pulsed Light (IPL) have been sought af­ter as a treat­ment.

We asked der­ma­tol­o­gist/skin ex­pert Doc­tor Nao­mi Dol­ly of Re­touched by ND to set the record straight about what makes our skin red and how to get rid of it (the red­ness) us­ing the var­i­ous med­ical and non med­ical ther­a­pies avail­able. Here is what she shared:

NATALIE MILES

What caus­es fa­cial red­ness?

Fa­cial red­ness can be caused by mul­ti­ple fac­tors, in­clud­ing

• Se­b­or­rhe­ic der­mati­tis

• Rosacea

• Skin ir­ri­ta­tion/al­ler­gic re­ac­tion

• Re­ac­tion to a med­ica­tion

• Atopic der­mati­tis

• Pso­ri­a­sis

• Spi­der veins

• Shin­gles

• Lu­pus

• Rare can­cer

Not all these con­di­tions can be treat­ed via a top­i­cal cream or laser/IPL, and you should speak with your der­ma­tol­o­gist.

What med­ical ther­a­pies are avail­able to treat fa­cial red­ness?

Avoid­ing trig­gers is the first step. Trig­gers are some­times dif­fi­cult to iden­ti­fy but some com­mon ones in­clude as­trin­gents, al­co­hols, per­ox­ides, scrubs, acids (for ex­am­ple, gly­col­ic acid, sal­i­cylic acid), di­rect sun ex­po­sure, heat, cof­fee and spicy foods.

The next step is to use top­i­cal and oral an­tibi­otics (such as metron­ida­zole, tetra­cy­clines) and med­ica­tions that make the tiny, di­lat­ed ves­sels shrink (for ex­am­ple Bri­moni­dine (Mir­va­so) and oxymeta­zo­line (Rho­fade) and mild top­i­cal steroids. Use­ful cos­me­ceu­ti­cal agents in­clude niaci­namide, top­i­cal an­tiox­i­dants (for ex­am­ple, green tea, caf­feine, and fer­ulic acid). Don’t for­get to wear sun­screen with an SPF of 30 or high­er when in the sun.

Vi­t­a­min A drugs are worth a men­tion here as there is of­ten de­bate on their use­ful­ness. Al­though oral for­mu­la­tions (for ex­am­ple, roac­cu­tane, iso-tretinoin) are used to treat se­vere forms of rosacea and ac­ne, top­i­cal retinoids (Retin-A, Dif­ferin, De­ri­va, tretinoin) and retinols can ag­gra­vate sen­si­tive skin.

If these meth­ods fail, con­sid­er laser/ IPL.

How are IPL and VBeam treat­ments ef­fec­tive for fa­cial red­ness?

IPL stands for in­tense pulsed light and is used to treat red­ness, age spots, freck­les, sun dam­age and more. It’s not a laser, but a band of light that tar­gets cer­tain colours, for ex­am­ple, IPL de­vices that treat red­ness tar­get the colour red; treat­ments that tar­get age spots tar­get brown, etc. Laser, on the oth­er hand, stands for Light Am­pli­fi­ca­tion by Stim­u­lat­ed Emis­sion of Ra­di­a­tion and it us­es a sin­gle fo­cused wave­length of light en­er­gy to tar­get a cer­tain colour. The pulsed dye laser—PDL (Vbeam per­fec­ta), de­liv­ers con­trolled puls­es of laser en­er­gy in­to the skin with spe­cif­ic wave­lengths of light cal­i­brat­ed to de­stroy un­want­ed ves­sels in the skin.

Can peo­ple with dark or olive skin tones treat fa­cial red­ness the same way?

Fa­cial red­ness is more dif­fi­cult to see in dark­er skin types but it’s still a com­plaint of many. Dark­er skin types should be cau­tious of get­ting IPL and PDL as dark­er skin ab­sorbs more light en­er­gy, in­creas­ing chances of un­want­ed side ef­fects, such as hy­per­pig­men­ta­tion, blis­ter­ing and burns. Choose a der­ma­tol­o­gist who has ex­pe­ri­ence with dark­er skin types.

Is there down­time for ei­ther IPL or PDL treat­ment?

You will be able to com­plete all of your dai­ly tasks. How­ev­er, right af­ter the pro­ce­dure and up to about a week af­ter, you may pre­fer to avoid so­cial set­tings for cos­met­ic rea­sons. Post treat­ment, ex­pect red­ness, ten­der­ness and swelling for 48 hours to one week, bruis­ing or dark pur­ple-ap­pear­ing skin and crust­ing or scab­bing skin for about a week. But these side ef­fects can be cov­ered up­with make­up, so you can re­turn to work once com­fort­able enough.

Which treat­ment is safer?

Both treat­ments are equal­ly safe, and FDA ap­proved; it de­pends on your in­di­vid­ual fac­tors.

What can you do to avoid/re­duce fa­cial red­ness?

Cer­tain peo­ple are pre­dis­posed to red­ness, es­pe­cial­ly those with fair skin. How­ev­er, ex­ter­nal fac­tors can make it. Here are some things to avoid:

• Over-ex­fo­li­at­ing

• Overuse of retinoids,

• Trau­ma (pim­ple pop­ping)

• Ex­treme tem­per­a­tures (hot show­ers)

• Ex­ten­sive UV Ex­po­sure

• Spicy foods

• Al­co­hol, es­pe­cial­ly red wine

• Stress

Some make­up prod­ucts and tech­niques may help re­duce the ap­pear­ance of skin red­ness. Try pow­der cos­met­ics with a green tone and mat­te fin­ish.

For more in­for­ma­tion on skin­care pro­ce­dures, vis­it

http://www.re­touched­bynd.com/

Fol­low Re­touched by ND on Face­book and

@dr.nao­mi­dol­lymd on In­sta­gram