Rosacea is often mispelled as: Roseacea, Rosasia or Roscea. It is pronounced as:

Rose - A - sha

Inflammatory rosacea is the second stage of this rather nasty skin ailment with, what is now known in neuropathic (that branch of medicine relating to nervous complaints) circles, as 'prerosacea' being the first stage.

When you are suffering second stage rosacea you will notice that; apart from the flush attacks you may experience the following conditions:

• Stinging or burning red skin across cheeks, chin, nose and forehead
• Papules
• Pustules
• Telangiectasia (spider veins across the cheeks and tip of your nose)

Let's go below and discuss these different conditions in more detail:

You can see in the illustration above where rosacea tends to make itself known.

With the cheeks and the nose usually being the first parts of the face to reveal these symptoms they can be easily mistaken for sunburn or even windburn.

This redness (called a 'flush' in rosacea circles) can last in excess of 10 minutes and be extremely painful with a burning or stinging sensation being felt.

These flushes can be the result of almost anything from hot weather, exercise and humidity to hot drinks, spicy foods and even cold weather!

Medical practitioners are still not certain what causes rosacea and a cure is still to be found.

As you can see from the diagram of a papule above; they result in that small, solid, inflamed mound of skin that you can feel on your skin surface when you run your fingers over them.

The inflammation is your body's response to the presence of bacteria being where they shouldn't be.

When the fight between the bacteria and white blood cells is fierce it results in the production of pus which is a mix of dead bacteria and dead white blood cells.

In the diagram below, the resulting pus pushes up against the skin's surface forming a 'pustule'. This pustule is sometimes misdiagnosed as 'adult acne' because it resembles the 'whiteheads' that acne sufferers display.

Telangiectasias are more commonly known as 'spider veins'. These are tiny veins that appear close to the surface of the skin. They are called 'spider' veins because they look like the thin legs of a spider.

Spider veins are a close relative of varicose veins but are much. much smaller in width.

There are no definitive reasons why spider veins occur. There are several theories available namely:

• They are 'born' from deeper veins whose valves have leaked thus causing increased pressure and so the blood 'forces' the body to create a vein to release the pressure.
• They are a result of small arteries latching onto the network of veins near the skin surface. Because the arterial blood is highly pressurized and the venal blood is at a low pressure this mix creates the visible appearance of bluey/red blood vessels.
  

With a combination of flushing, burning and stinging skin, papules and pustules forming and a network of tiny red/blue veins appearing over your cheeks and nose; you can easily see how rosacea can seriously dent a sufferer's wish to be seen socially.

For further reading on how you can reduce the redness, burning and stinging, eliminate the papules and pustules and reduce the appearance of spider veins then please visit:

http://rednessreports.info.com

For further reading on Rosacea and its effects then please follow this link:

Ocular Rosacea