Hello Everyone,
I just wanted to thank Jim so much for his recent pages on "Facing Cure - Red's Rosaceai Story" and "I'm so Proud of Us".
The word "cure" to those of us in the rosaceai community is as elusive and sought after as the Holy Grail (as I know it is to any disease, like MSi , CFSi , etc that dramatically affects one's life). So many of us early in our diagnosis have prayed that each trinket we found was the Holy Grail, only to find out it was a rusty, cruddy old tin can, and just as useless.....
It is understandably difficult for anyone who has not suffered from rosacea to know its true impact and pain. Beyond the obvious cosmetic aberrations that can significantly impact one's self-esteem, self-confidence and psychological well-being in general, there is great physical pain and discomfort. For many of us in the moderate to severe stages of the disease, the constant pain of feeling like your face is on fire, like your epidermis is sizzling and burning like a round of bacon in a frying pan, the increased hypersensitivity to anything you put on your skin, sometimes even water burns and irritates, the inability to enjoy social gatherings or public places because of social flushing and heat intolerance, renders many of us disabled by the condition. The impact on our relationships can be profound. The impact on our ability to work, or do normal activities like cooking or cleaning (anything that raises body temperature), etc, can be immense. To control my rosacea for example, I have to spend thousands a year on anti-inflammatory topicals and supplementsi , take cold showers (any warmth will cause me to flush and burn for hours), avoid any environment above 15 - 17 degrees Celsius or I will be in agony, stay out of the sun and bright lights, only eat cold food, no hot drinks or thermally hot foods (again, one bite of something even lukewarm sets me off), I can barely even sit close to someone because their body heat will start me to burn up (you can imagine how difficult relationships could be), avoid all foods and spices which are high in histamines and salicylates which are triggers for me, and on and on. I started out with mild rosacea but it progressed over the years through the moderate and now severe stages. I thought it would get better after I treated my H.Pylori infection 3 years ago. Little did I know then that other pathogens were lurking. We liken rosacea in our community to a "beast". There is just no controlling it's anger and vengeance it seems. It seems the "beast" may at least in part be Cpni ...........
. I am just starting Antibiotics
. My symptoms have been sinus infections