Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with blushing

My love for you is like a red, red nose...

Phalene — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 11:41:40 -0800

Rosacea management: care and hiding of a sometimes red face? Several questions all on one topic inside. I have moderate rosacea that afflicts only my nose. The antibiotics removed the surface damage, curing the bumps so I'm merely pink instead of red, inflamed and spotty, but discovering that I have an incurable tendency to flush in a disfiguring fashion means that I want to know the best ways to manage my condition on the other hand I don't want to live my life trying to avoid everything that could cause a rush of blood to prevent a flare up. So:

1) My dermatologist gave me a huge long list of things to avoid based on 'typical' rosacea suffers. Most of these (hot baths/showers/exertion/sun) certainly turn my feet red, but seem to improve my facial redness by fading it. Cold, allergens and surface bacteria seem to be my triggers. How to cope? I’m Canadian, so avoiding the whole winter thing is a non-option.

2) As a contact lense wearer, I find that eye irritation causes me to flush a little bit. How can I minimize this until I can get laser eye surgery (in another 2 or 3 years)? I would swap back to glasses, but the difference in vision between contacts and glasses is for me, considerable. How can I keep my eyes less inflamed, and thus my nose healthy?

3) As a female I want to wear makeup. What lines and brands of foundation/concealer/powder/etc should I look for, that I can use to cover the pink, when I don’t want to look cute and windblown, which have a good track record for sensitive skin? It’s no use hiding the pink only to turn it red with a flare up.

4) The ‘if left untreated’ pictures are ghastly and some things I’ve read say that getting worse is normal. Do I have a future of looking like boil covered raw meat, or do people generally do okay and this is those extreme pictures you typically find in medical texts? Similarly some sources say going into remission is possible (ie Wikipedia). How complete is that remission?

5) On the internet, rosacea seems to be a topic prone to voodoo cures and conflicting information. While interesting reading, what are the best rosacea resources? Non-flakey (ie actually has studies for their ‘emu-oil’ cure ideas) are best.

6) Socially speaking, how do I deal with nice people asking about my skin affliction (ie ‘You have a cold?’) or idiots humming ‘Rudolph’ in what they think is taking the mickey out of me, but is making my self esteem wither? I mean asides from screeching ‘Christ, what an asshole?’

7) I'm 22, and it seems to have started at 20. What gives? I thought this was a middle aged lady disease? Is this something to follow up on? Or is is just genetic luck of the draw, given that my mother has a pink nose too?

8) Anything else I should know about rosacea?

is that a hickey?

lisawin — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:23:23 -0800

So, I've got this red splotch on my chest. I've only had it since a sunburn last year, and it gets redder if I'm flushed. The sunburn I got last summer wasn't even that bad (I know that sunburns are bad regardless, but it wasn't to the point of blistering or peeling), and if I'm not flushed, its hardly noticeable, if at all. As soon as my face starts getting remotely flushed, this splotch makes its appearance. It's a very specific spot and shape, so its not like post-hot-shower kind of random splotching.

So. What gives?

Dermatology Filter - She's really, really white

meta x zen — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 20:31:42 -0800

Dermatology filter - My fiancée is a very fair skinned (I call her translucent) Irish girl. When ever she gets nervous, exercises or otherwise flustered she gets blotchy red spots. We are getting married in a year and she doesn’t want to be red and white spotted for the big day. Anyone know about this and or have any suggestions? To expand… Some people think they are rashes. The spots appear around her chest, neck and face and will last for fifteen or twenty minutes. (She says the longer she thinks about them the longer they stay.) It’s definitely not a rash, it seems more like when a normal person would blush or get nervous she gets these distinct spots. She blushed like this when we first met… I must rock. Thanks for the suggestions & opinions…

Blushing

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 22:26:00 -0800

How can I stop blushing? I am a quite social and extroverted person with a relatively large social circle. I consider myself confident. However, whenever I experience any minimal amount of emotional stress, my face turns red. Usually: Really red, really fast. Especially in situations that would make me feel somewhat self-conscious. Anger, or being offended, also definitely does it.

It seems that in most social contexts, blushing is regarded as a sign of being embarrassed about something. With me, thats not the case. I hardly ever feel embarrased about anything, and if my face turns red, thats not why. Self-conscious? Likely. But not embarrassed. Meaning the only thing that really feels bad, is the fact that I know that I'm blushing.

Now, when I'm with people I know, this isn't that much of a problem, as they know that I'm like this, and they know it's nothing to worry about. But when I'm meeting new people, it is a problem. If I suddendly turn red in the face for apparently no reason, they will think they've made me uncomfortable or said something wrong (or that I'm a weird fool, for that matter), and the whole situation gets awkward.

For me, however, the only problem is the awkward situations the varying color in my face creates, the emotional stress that caused my sudden color change is usually so negligible I hardly even notice.

This whole thing is especially problematic situations like speaking to crowds, job interviews etc. where it seems unavoidable to feel a little conscious about ones self, and me turning red-faced seems predestined.

I'd really like to hear of ways of dealing with this.

I know of a surgical operation where they enter through your armpit and just cut of the nerve that makes you blush. It's supposed to be a quite low-risk and quick operation, and frankly it's something I likely would have already done if I had the money available.

I've heard of other people taking beta-blockers before upcoming potential blushfests, but I wouldn't want do be doing that without at least seeing my doctor about it first. Don't know about the side-effects etc., and unless I'd be able to take it everyday it wouldn't help me in my daily life.

Irritation from cosmetic products? A few years ago I was using some facial cleansing stuff, and that seemed to be making it worse. These day the only chemical stuff that touches my face is some shaving-foam "for sensitive skin", and that actually seems too soothe the skin. Switching to that shaving foam may actually have maybe me blush slightly less than before. FWIW, I'm using regular shampoo, even though my scalp is kind of red-ish.

I'm in my very late teens, and I've been like this probably since the very start of my teenage years. Blushing is said to be something most people grow out it, but I feel that if I was to grow out of this, it would have happened by now. I also know that this is a problem some well-established adults do deal with.

Finally, just to illustrate how extreme it can be sometimes: I don't even need to be around other people for my face to turn red. I can sit alone on a bus, and feel myself blushing, likely because of some minimal and unimportant thought crossing my mind. It really isn't cute anymore, just a pretty large annoyance. All help is largely appreciated.