I am often asked how I keep my rosacea under control and my – sometimes unpopular – response is ‘through a lot of trial and error’. I was diagnosed with rosacea at 21 – 20 years ago – and I have made a lot of changes to my lifestyle, skincare routine, and mindset in that time. But by far the biggest change to my skin was finding out my rosacea triggers.
In case you didn’t know, April is Rosacea Awareness Month. I feel like I’ve been talking about rosacea forever, but I only finally got up the courage to talk openly about it on this blog in early 2013. Before then, this blog was a nail blog (hence the nail pun blog name…!): focusing on my hands meant that I never had to address my skin on the blog. I was terrified that someone would question me or make hurtful comments about my appearance, so I hid myself away.
Over the years I have been very open about my experiences with the medical community with relation to my rosacea: I’ve had some awful experiences, some that could have been improved, and some absolutely wonderful ones. One of my main missions with my blog and social media has always been to be totally honest and provide the advice and support that I desperately needed as a 21 year old who left her GP appointment having been diagnosed and handed a cream with no information about this incurable condition. I felt alone, scared, and devastated. Over the past few days I’ve been compiling stories sent by my followers who were kind enough to share their experiences with me after I put a request out on my instagram stories. I speak more about this later, but this is not a criticism of the medical community overall, I just wanted to highlight real stories to show that there is a lot of room and opportunity for change. Talking to a stranger about our skin is an incredibly vulnerable experience and the way were are treated in that moment matters. I want to give you the strength and information to not only demand better treatment but then to go on to find the wonderful doctors and dermatologists that are out there and can’t wait to help you.
Things have been a little quiet on the blog in the past 6 months and we are long overdue a catch up about my skin as a lot has happened and I’ve had a lot of questions on instagram and FB about how I’ve been coping with it. So get settled for my Skincare Shake Up, covering the past few months.
I have been talking about and recommending the La Roche-Posay Cicaplast Baume B5 on this blog for many years. I first discovered it in France when I would wander around the pharmacies for hours, picking up bottles and tubes and buying anything that said ‘soothing’, ‘cooling’ or ‘for sensitive skin’. Recently La Roche-Posay released Cicaplast Gel B5 and I have been trying it out for a few months, wanting to gather my thoughts before I shared them with you.
