Recently in Rosacea Category

I'm doing another product review - for several reasons.

First, as I've stated here several times before, I'm a complete and total health and beauty product whore. I love browsing hair care products, skin care products, makeup, and all that stuff. I probably tried about 50% of all of the products on the market, so I'm a fairly educated resource. (Ok, I realize even 50% of the entire Health and Beauty product market is still huge, so I may be embellishing a little. But I've experimented with a lot of stuff).

My second reason for doing this review is I'm an avid online shopper. My choice of products shopping online is infinite. My choice of products here in Kutztown, Pennsylvania is limited. Very limited. Since online shopping obviously doesn't allow me to actually see the merchandise I'm buying up close and personal, I'm a big fan of reviews. I read them obsessively. Of course I take some reviews with a grain of salt, but for the most part, they're pretty spot on. Unfortunately, I can find almost no user reviews for my (current) favorite skincare line. So that's where this review comes in. I'm not making any money from pushing their products, I just love them... which brings me to my third reason for writing this review:

In many, many years, I haven't found any other product - prescription or non-prescription - that produces results like this one.

So, this brings us to puppytoes.net product review #2:

I've been battling rosacea a very long time, so this review may be a little long. I have fair, sensitive, easily sunburned skin (which is how I ended up with skin cancer). As I've gotten older, my skin has become more and more red and irritated. Many years ago, a dermatologist told me it was rosacea. Great, ok, so how do I get rid of it?

I tried three different prescription rosacea creams or gels - MetroGel, Finacea, and some other cream I don't remember the name of - started with an N or something to that effect. None of them really did anything to calm down the redness and bumpiness. I also tried tons of over-the-counter cleansers and moisturizers - I can't even remember them all - and none really ever did anything spectacular. The dermatologist told me that constant use of antibiotics would do the trick, but I really didn't feel like taking Tetracycline the rest of my life. I also investigated Intense Pulsed Light treatments, but I bristled a bit at the $1500 it cost.

So one day, I'm browsing sephora (that's like the mothership calling product whores like me home...too bad they don't carry the whole B. Kamins line anymore), and I found a Rosacea Starter kit from B. Kamins, Chemist. Apparently they have a whole line of products aimed at people with rosacea, so I ordered it on the spot. If I remember correctly, at that time (a couple of years ago), it came with the Vegetable Skin Cleanser, Diatomamous Earth Skin Masque, and their Booster Blue Rosacea Treatment. Immediately after using the products - we're talking the next day here, I noticed my skin was smoother. Not so much less red, but smoother. The bumpiness was gone! To make this part of the story short, I kept using their products. They've since expanded their Rosacea Skin line, now including a Booster Blue Rosacea cleanser, masque, and moisturizer (I tried the moisturizer - it was a bit too greasy for my liking). But I used the Booster Blue Rosacea Treatment for about three years.

Then, horror of horrors! I ran out of the Booster Blue Treatment. As I was cursing my stupidity for not ordering sooner, I was pawing through my bathroom drawer looking for the little sample baggie B. Kamins usually sends with their orders (LOVE the samples - just enables my habit). I didn't have any Booster Blue samples - damn! - but I did come across a teeny tiny tube of Redness Defying Lotion. I was desperate, and I decided to try it.

Holy sweet mother of God!

The very next morning my skin looked like it does when I'm taking antibiotics (usually when I had a sinus infection or something else that required antibiotics, my skin would end up looking fabulous). Sure, there was a teeny little bit of redness lingering, but I was pale again. And in a good way! I haven't seen my skin like this in years, I'm not shitting you. My skin was smooth, soft, non-flaky, and non-red. The. Next. Day. As in, after the first application. Hot damn!

Needless to say, even though the Booster Blue Rosacea Treatment is lovely, B. Kamins' Redness Defying Lotion is my new mustmustmust-have product. I don't know exactly how it differs in composition from their rosacea line of products, but if they'd create a line of products based on the Redness Defying Lotion, I'd buy every single one.

Of course, with everything, there are some drawbacks - at $75 for 1.7oz, the price is enough to make me flinch a little. I started using the bottle I have right now in the second week of October 2008, and it's just about to go empty now. So $75 is a little steep, but for 3-4 months of use, effective use at that, I'll take it. Another negative is the packaging. The container is opaque, so there's no way to see how much product is left. I went to use it on Christmas Day, only to get air coming out of the pump. I nearly fainted until I realized it was probably just a little air bubble. But I couldn't tell. The bottle feels like it's nearly empty, but I can't tell how close to the end I really am. I just hope the order I just placed will get here before it runs out. And the last negative isn't really a negative. B Kamins, man, make a bigger bottle! Dude, I would bathe in that stuff, if I could, I love it so much. Yes, I will most likely bitch about having to pay a lot of money for a bigger bottle, but at least my face won't be red.

So the final word on B. Kamins, Chemist Redness Defying Lotion? I can't limit it to one word: TRY IT. YOU'LL LIKE IT. Hard to believe the prescription creams were a fraction as effective as this stuff. It's probably been about 15 years that I'm dealing with rosacea. While this stuff doesn't cure it, it certainly beats it down.

With all of the iMac hoopla going on after vacation, I realized I never posted about my biopsy results.

I have skin cancer.

I really don't think it's as bad as it sounds. But still, those words - SKIN CANCER - have maybe thrown me into a small fit of depression.

It's a basal cell carcinoma - "the kind of skin cancer one would rather have" (as if I'd want to have any) - small growing and localized. It sucks, because my rosacea has calmed down exponentially since I started using Finacea, and my face is finally starting to look much less red again.

I have a consultation appointment with a MOHS specialist on July 11. I'll have to have surgery to remove the cancer. I'm still terrified I'll have a large hole or indentation on the side of my nose. I'm scared that I won't want to go out of the house because everyone will be looking at a hole on my face. Call me vain, but that's how I feel.

Voicing my fears to Dave doesn't help much - he usually tells me not to worry about it until I see the doctor, so he really doesn't want to hear it. He's right, but come on! How could anyone not worry about it? And my mom just lays into me right away about smoking - last time I checked I couldn't really get skin cancer from smoking. I told her I can just thank my fair-haired, fair-skinned, green-eyed Irish heritage for my ability to burn to a crisp every time I go into the sun. And getting lectured from someone who never wore a drop of sunscreen in her life while out in the sun kind of frosts my ass. But that's what mothers are for, I guess. So my only place to really vent about it is here.

At least my computer won't care if I have a hole on my face!

The little area on my face where the dermatologist took the biopsy looked very strange today. It looked a little yellow, and even Dave said it looked like it was maybe getting infected. I don't see how, with the amount of Neosporin I'm using, but anything's possible.

I just took a good look in the mirror and I realized what it was. My goddamn skin is so motherfucking red that underneath the area where he cut is just my regular non-rosacea affected skin. The yellowish cast might be because of the Neosporin, because after washing my face, the area is looking quite white.

So there it is, folks. It's official. I'm a fucking lobster.

Well, today I had my appointment with the dermatologist.

Yes, my primary doctor's office sent the referral. At the last minute. Bastards.

In addition to the 4-5 odd months it took me to get an appointment, I waited another 45 minutes past my appointment time to finally see the dermatologist. No biggie, I guess - at least they had my referral.

First the nurse asked a couple of questions, including "As for the rosacea - is today a good day or a bad day?" "It's a good day", I said. OK, so when the doctor comes in, he reads my file, and says,

"So today is a good day for your rosacea?", frowning as he peers at my face.

I say, "Yup"

He replies with, "How bad is a bad day?"

"When I have a bad day, it looks like I'm either ready to explode or like I've been baking in the sun for awhile"

He asked if I was still using the Metro-Gel he prescribed for me the last time I was there. I told him it just didn't work for me. He gave me a prescription to try something new - Finacea - but it'll probably dry my skin out pretty bad, given I've got dry skin to begin with. Hey, I'll give it a whirl, why not? I also asked him about whether or not the IPL would benefit my skin. Well, it will get rid of some of the redness, but won't help so much with flushing (from heat, etc) - which at this point may just work for me. It will be $1500 for 6 sessions, and he even told me he'd write a letter I can send into the people who administer our FSA plan to clarify the treatment. Hopefully they'll accept the diagnosis and I'll be able to use the FSA to pay for it.

As for my bump - unfortunately, it's not rosacea-related. He said it looked like a small basal cell carcinoma (as in SKIN CANCER) or an enlarged oil gland. The only way to tell is to biopsy it. So they did.

OK - I've had novocaine for dental work before, no big deal. But having novocaine injected into the side of my nose was excruciating! Oh, that was nasty! It was kind of that feeling where I felt I had to sneeze but couldn't, then my eyes started watering like niagra falls and snot was gushing down the back of my throat. Ugh. Luckily I didn't feel the second injection. The novocaine was working its way down to my upper lip at that point, and my lip felt like I was giving an Elvis-like sneer. Very odd.

So the doctor does a shave biopsy - it didn't hurt, but the sight of a razor blade descending on my face was enough to make me tense up pretty good. He told me to relax, that I wouldn't feel it - and I didn't - but I had to close my eyes to get away from the sight of the razor blade. Very unsettling. Then they put ointment and a bandage on it.

I did talk to the people who do the IPL, then, and they were also nice enough to give me the insurance "codes" for the treatment so I can call Cigna, give them the codes, then have them tell me whether or not it's valid for reimbursement from an FSA account.

Actually, everyone in their office was very nice and helpful.

I went back to work afterwards, but on my way home, I peeled off the bandage. All I saw was a little red dot. Not bad at all. I thought it would be worse. Ha! Apparently I'm partially blind or the lighting in my car just sucks. When I got home (with some Chinese food to self-medicate), I looked in the mirror, and there's a round "hole" (no better word for it, I guess), a little smaller than the diameter of a pencil eraser. The red dot I saw was probably where they injected the novocaine. Where they did the biopsy - it's probably gonna leave a nice little scar. I'm heaping Neosporin on it, hoping to keep scarring at a minimum. But as the novocaine started wearing off, it started stinging a bit, so thankfully the Neosporin is the stuff with the pain-relief in it.

I'm not sure when the biopsy results will be back, but they told me they'd call with the results. The question now is - do I check my messages when we're on vacation next week? Do I really want to find out the results while I'm on vacation? I want to know, but I don't want to ruin vacation, either.

Maybe I'll just wait and see what happens.

Tomorrow is D-Day - Dermatologist Day.

At least I hope so.

I called the dermatologist's office today to confirm the time of my appointment tomorrow, then asked to make sure they had the referral from my primary doctor, who was supposed to "send it electronically".

They didn't have my referral.

I called my primary doctor's office three weeks ago! Of course, right away, they were all, "we need to see you here first", and I'm like "Look, I came to see you about my rosacea and stuff three years ago and there was nothing you could do for me. You even gave me a referral then to this dermatologist". And of course she's like, "Well, if there's a problem, we'll call".

Three weeks later, no call. But there's also no referral sitting at my dermatologist's office.

So I called my primary doctor's office today. Get this - THEY'RE CLOSED! Apparently they're not open Wednesday afternoons. What the hell? Who the hell takes off Wednesday afternoons? And of course, there's no hours on their fancy-schmancy voicemail system - just, "Thank you for calling Fleetwood Medical Associates, our office is closed. If this is an emergency...." blah blah blah. That's it. No hours. No "We will reopen tomorrow at 8", nothing. So here I'm sitting, wondering if I'm even going to be able to see the dermatologist tomorrow.

There's going to be a HUGE can of whopass opened if they can't send that referral. I've waited almost 5 MONTHS to get in to see this guy, not to mention - no phone call to tell me there's a problem! Not like I have enough motherfucking stress wondering if I have skin cancer or just bumps from rosacea, but let's make me think I'm going to have to wait another 5 months to get an appointment.

Of course, they could just be waiting until the last minute to send it in. Bastards.