Current mainstream rosacea treatment sets you up to fail, instead we need to be thinking about rosacea holistically
PLUS my 3 top tips to get started
Rosacea is a common inflammatory skin condition, often thought of as chronic, that affects about 5.46% of the global adult population. Now the word holistic gets banded around a lot so I want to explain what I mean when I use this term.
1. We examine rosacea and the skin from a body systems perspective. Functional Medicine is a body systems approached to health and where I have invested extensively in continued training and professional development. In Functional Medicine we don’t believe in treating the symptoms but understanding the unique root causes for each client (not condition), which generally involved multiple body systems and how they are interacting with one another, your genetics, diet, lifestyle and environment.
So for example, I might gave 5 rosacea clients that I am supporting but I am not going to assume that the same things will work for all of them, but investigate each of their cases individually and create a programme tailored to their unique genetics, health history, goals, symptoms, values and lifestyle. Very far removed from our current ‘pill for an ill’ healthcare model.
Now lets look at how we can understand rosacea from a body systems perspective. Although the exact mechanisms of rosacea is still unclear, the general consensus is that the condition stems from:
immune dysregulation
neurovascular* dysfunction
impaired skin barrier
*Neurovascular refers to affecting both the nerves (neuro) and blood vessels (vascular).
Other factors include:
microbiome health (both gut + skin)
neuroimmune interactions (the interaction between our nervous system + immune system)
metabolic dysfunction
sebaceous gland dysregulation (the glands that produce oil that are in abundance on our face)
INFOGRAPHIC OF FACTORS INVOLVED IN ROSACEA
Already you can hopefully see that one medication, pill or cream is never going to be able to work on all of these factors simultaneously. They might work for a bit, but generally symptoms return after treatment ends.
So,
2. To effectively support rosacea, and indeed any skin condition, you need to build a toolkit that works holistically; treating the WHOLE person not just the condition or the skin.
One question I often get asked is “I already eat such a good diet, how can nutritional therapy help my skin?” Or, “I’ve already changed my diet, tried the low-histamine diet, gone gluten free, vegan, given up dairy and NOTHING’S worked”, so it must not be diet related for me.
WRONG.
But diet is just ONE component, an important one for sure, but not the only tool I have in my kitbag. And it needs to be adapted simultaneously with working on YOUR root causes AND within a holistic kitbag. Without this it just won’t work, you might see some short term improvements but generally they won’t last. Hence why rosacea gets labelled as ‘untreatable’. It’s not, it’s just medication or giving up a food group falls way too short of the skin and all its beautiful complexed nuance.
During the last 5 years as my focus on working with skin holistically has evolved I’ve developed 4 pillars to help assess a clients skin through AND to help them understand all the different factors that are feeding into their skin and we have available to us to help support healing.
TRUE SKIN NUTRITION PILLARS:
Wouldn’t it be great if I had a rosacea protocol I could confidently work through with each client (it would certainly make my life a lot easier and mean I could work with hundreds more clients), but whilst the body systems involved might be the same across a group of rosacea clients, the exact mechanisms by which each body system is interacting PLUS the diet, health, values, lifestyle and genetics will be completely bespoke to each individual. And tbh this is what I love about my work, how beautifully unique each of us are. Our healthcare should represent this but sadly our current mainstream model doesn’t.
I hope you found this blog helpful and you have learnt something about this commone skin condition, if you are currently struggling with rosacea I also want to share 3 tips that you can implement today to help move you towards feeling more confident in your skin.
DIET: Incorporate 30g of protein at breakfast
This will help to balance blood sugar levels and the nervous system - both of which feed into the immune system.
Here are 3 breakfast ideas you can rotate:
- tofu scramble. 150g serving contains 12g protein, served with a slice of The Heart of Nature bread (8g protein). Add herbs and spices for extra antioxidants and polyphenols. Plus a smoothie with protein powder (10-15g protein).
Nice high protein bread option:The Heart of Nature Seed Bread
I like Pulsin Pea Protein or Purition Vegan options, both brands are available at www.naturaldispensary.co.uk using my code trueskin for 5% off.
- 3 medium egg omelette with mushrooms, spinach and pepper (approx 24g protein), served with a handful of olives and 1 tbsp humous (approx 4g protein). Add herbs and spices for extra antioxidants and polyphenols.
- 2 slices of Heart of Nature Seed Bread with 1/2 tin of sardines in olive oil (drained), 1 tbsp humous. Approx 30g protein. Add fresh herbs for extra antioxidants.
LIFESTYLE: Do more things that bring you joy
My skin clients, and in fact all of my clients, come to me with unmanaged stress and dysregulated nervous systems. Stress is an area we have to get a hold of eventually but for some it can take time to understand where the stress is coming from, how its resonating and what options we have available to us to change things.
So instead at the beginning I like to focus on trying to bring more JOY into my clients life. Doing things that make us feel food changes our biochemistry. We start making more of a hormone called oxytocin which can re-balance our stress hormones. What brings joy is going to be unique to each of us but oxtyotin boosting activities include hugging (for at least 10 seconds), massage, sexual activity, spending time with friends, being in nature, moving our body).
When you are living with a skin condition life can get pretty restricted as we cut ourselves off from friends, family, food and life. This can be especially troubling with rosacea when ‘avoiding triggers’ is the number one piece of advice given out. Hardly sounds fun at all.
MINDSET: flip your thinking from trying to get rid of redness to improving the resilience of your skin.
If we just focus on trying to get rid of redness we are going to lose sight of many of the nuanced ways we can heal rosacea. My focus when I am supporting a skin client is never to get rid of their skin condition (though of course I know that is what my client wants me to do!) but to improve the resilience of the skin by understanding what the skin is trying to tell us.
This takes time, patience and a commitment to getting to the root cause. Ironically with something like rosacea this approach actually saves so much time in the long run, but that’s a story for another day!
I hope you have found this blog helpful and are coming away with a couple of new tools to add to your kitbag.
If you are interested in learning more about working with me as a client you can book a free 20 minute Clarity Call here.
There are a variety of different ways we can work together so please do get in touch.
Focus on improving the resilience of your skin versus getting rid of redness
3.
Further Reading + image source
Chen, C.; Wang, P.; Zhang, L.; Liu, X.; Zhang, H.; Cao, Y.; Wang, X.; Zeng, Q. Exploring the Pathogenesis and Mechanism-Targeted Treatments of Rosacea: Previous Understanding and Updates. Biomedicines 2023, 11, 2153. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines11082153
