The best treatment for rosacea acne is considered to be a holistic approach including diet, avoiding triggers, conventional IPL rosacea treatment and where appropriate, laser hair removal.

It is known that spots are caused by bacteria which are thought to live in the hair follicles; if you get rid of the hair you may get rid of the spots.

However before this is done, it is necessary to repair or ‘get rid of’ any veins (typically those associated with rosacea), which break the continuity of the skin leaving it open to bacterial infection. This is done using IPL rosacea treatment.

which also kills any superficial bacteria. Once this has been done, then laser hair removal may be used on the area that is affected by large spots.

Case Study

A lady with Acne Rosacea (and relatively large spots on her face)  had normal IPL on her face to kill any superficial bacteria and also to repair and damaged blood vessels.

Laser hair removal was then used on her face and cheeks, which were particularly prone to big spots

The lady then reported that it looked as if the hair removal had worked on the acne rosacea because her face was now much clearer.

Additional Information

IPL Treatment (possibly combined with hair removal for acne rosacea)

Diet and avoiding triggers invariably  reduce rosacea symptoms and flare-ups and so are an integral part of any rosacea treatment.

Avoid triggers

Identify triggers (using a diary) that affect you.

The following were identified in a study of over 3,000 rosacea sufferers who said they had food or drink triggers:

Wine  -  found to be  'irritating their condition' by almost half of the group.

About one third of the group were affected by alcohol, cayenne pepper, hot coffee, red pepper, chocolate, tomatoes and hot tea.

About a quarter were affected by citrus fruits, whilst black pepper affected around 1 in 5 of sufferers

Fruit Triggers.

The following are more likely to be triggers, citrus fruits (or juices), bananas, raisins, red plums and figs. Melon, peach, banana, kiwi and apple can be responsible for over 70% of allergic reactions in adults who suffer from  rosacea fruit allergy. Please note that statistics can be easily mis-read, the figure refers to ‘over 70%  of adults with rosacea fruit allergy’, and not ‘over 70% of adults with rosacea’.

Diet

Each person is totally individual and so diet needs to be tailored to your own individual requirements.

Where possible,  choose foods that ‘are close to nature’. These are typically unprocessed or have had minimal processing. Where possible they should be free from artificial colouring and flavouring.

A website that has information on rosacea diet is NutritionalEssence.com