A recent National Rosacea Society (NRS) survey found that highly successful medical treatment for rosacea often has a major positive impact on patients’ lives.

In the survey of 1,044 rosacea patients, around 76 percent of all respondents saw at least some improvement in their skin after receiving treatment. Among those patients, 40 percent said that treatment had improved their psychological well-being, 35 percent said their social well-being had improved, and 31 percent saw improvement in their occupational well-being.

A new advance in the understanding of mast cells, located at the interface between the nervous and vascular systems, in the development of rosacea is at the center of a recent study funded by a National Rosacea Society research grant and conducted by a team led by Dr. Anna Di Nardo, professor of medicine at the University of California-San Diego.

The National Rosacea Society has introduced an innovative public service booklet called “Recognizing Redness” to help rosacea sufferers assess facial redness, the primary diagnostic feature of this chronic facial skin disorder that affects more than 16 million Americans. The booklet includes a redness register to allow patients to gauge relative redness before and after flare-ups or treatment.

In a recent NRS survey of 604 rosacea patients on the impact of rosacea on their social life, more than 88 percent said that the effect of rosacea on their appearance had attracted unwanted attention.

About two-thirds of the respondents said they avoided social situations because of their rosacea. Parties and social events were the most common venues for awkward incidents, with 70 percent of patients pointing to them. “Social activities like dancing get too painful when I have a flare-up, so my dance partners notice I feel pain,” one respondent commented.

We all know many rosacea patients are affected by alcohol, but what about the alcohol hiding in your medicine cabinet? When you read the ingredient label on the back of a skin care product, you may discover multiple varieties of alcohol listed. Each of these can serve a different purpose, which may or may not be problematic for rosacea skin.

Inflammatory acne and rosacea are both common in Latin Americans, but because rosacea is usually associated with lighter skin tones, it is often missed or misdiagnosed in those with darker skin, according to a recent article in the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology.¹