Common rosacea triggers and how to avoid them

What is rosacea?

Rosacea is a skin condition that can cause spots, redness, and flushing of your skin - usually covering your face or around your eyes. Other symptoms include visible blood vessels, and some people also experience thickening of the skin and/or small bumps that may be filled with pus.

Symptoms tend to wax and wane for many people - and the condition may even go away for periods of time. While younger people do experience rosacea, it often develops in middle age.

How is rosacea usually treated?

While the redness of rosacea may flare up in response to certain foods, the first port of call is not to investigate your diet but to make an appointment with a doctor or a specialist who will be able to advise you of medical treatments available to manage the condition. Treatments include antibiotic treatment and specialist creams.

However, to keep symptoms and redness to a minimum, it's worth looking at dietary triggers and finding ways to manage these too.

What can trigger rosacea?

When talking about rosacea ‘triggers’, it is important to establish what is meant by this term. According to Dr Adam Friedmann, Consultant Dermatologist and Director of ProDerm UK, you can’t cure rosacea just by dietary change. However, there is a long list of things that can flare up the redness.

What foods can trigger rosacea?

According to Friedmann, anything that is going to dilate your blood vessels will make it appear worse. This includes food or drink that is particularly acidic or spicy.

Some people with rosacea opt to minimise or eliminate all triggers from their diet in an attempt to control symptoms. These tend to vary from person to person, meaning identifying - and avoiding - rosacea triggers in an individual case can take time.

Elizabeth Rimmer, Clinical Director of London Professional Aesthetics, London, UK, says that eliminating a food from your diet completely will not mean that you say goodbye to your rosacea. However, it may help to reduce some of the symptoms.

How to identify rosacea triggers

In order to pinpoint triggers for your rosacea, it is worth taking time to understand your skin and how it is responding. For example, by keeping a food diary. Rimmer explains that the purpose of a food diary is to try to establish any links between certain foods and changes you notice in your skin.

"Keeping a food diary can be done in lots of different ways," she says. "But the most important thing is to include everything - sauces, drinks, snacks."

If you do find something that seems to exacerbate the redness in your case, you may decide to eliminate it from your diet. However, it's important to be realistic as to how effective such elimination will be and weigh up the pros and cons.

Rimmer advises that this decision should really be taken by yourself based on how much rosacea bothers you and how hard would it be to eliminate the chosen food.

"It’s important to retain balance in life and not to make yourself miserable in your quest for better skin care," she says. "In the same way, if your skin is making you feel miserable, then making a few dietary compromises will seem worthwhile."

Can stress trigger rosacea?

Stress has also been identified as a possible trigger for rosacea flare-ups in some people.

Stress can be difficult to manage, but it's worth taking the time to find ways to reduce flare-ups, and your excess stress. Again, being realistic is important.

Can exercise help or hinder rosacea symptoms?

We’re used to being told certain foods are bad for our health. And few of us are under any illusions about the impact of stress. But there is also another possible rosacea trigger - exercise.

While cutting out exercise is not medically recommended, it may be that changing your exercise method could make a difference.

However, Rimmer cautions that she would never advise against exercise to save your skin - we all know the enormous benefits of exercise. If you want to minimise the disruption to your skin, avoid hot yoga and long periods of intense cardio as well as aerial activities requiring you to be upside down.

"Gentle cardio, weight training, and stretching are all invaluable to your general health and wellbeing," she says.

Long term management of your rosacea

As with many skin conditions, rosacea tends to change over the years. This means you may find new triggers, or experience unexpected flare-ups over time. You may also experience periods without symptoms.

It's important to practice a degree of acceptance of rosacea. Minimising it but not allowing it to affect your daily life too adversely. Good management should mean flare ups are kept to a minimum, and in time those with the condition can learn how best to manage their condition in a way that feels right for them.