Those pimples you just blasted with a powerful spot treatment? They could very well be signs of rosacea, which requires a way gentler plan of action. Here’s how you can tell what your bumps are really telling you. While you can place blame on underlying factors for acne, rosacea typically reacts to the external factors in your life. “The skin is extra sensitive and overly reactive to the environment. Patients typically develop facial redness, flushing, and commonly complain of burning or stinging,” Zeichner adds. When you think of acne, red inflamed bumps may come to mind. But just because you have pimples doesn’t mean you have true acne. Those red, inflamed bumps also show up in severe rosacea cases, which is why the two are commonly confused. “The inflammation caused by rosacea can lead to acne in some patients, called acne rosacea,” says board-certified dermatologist Adarsh Vijay Mudgil, M.D. “This is where there is significant overlap, which can understandably lead to confusion.” The distinction is important because the two skin conditions require totally different treatments. While rosacea patients should work on calming the inflammation by avoiding potential triggers (like sun, caffeine, and spicy foods, to highlight a few), acne patients might need to tailor topical treatments depending on the type of bumps they have. The main kicker is that people with acne develop a combination of blackheads and whiteheads along with those quintessential red bumps and pimples. Rosacea patients, on the other hand, might experience those red bumps, but they won’t come to a “head,” so to speak. Here’s how you can tell if you’re experiencing acne or rosacea: With rosacea, the key is avoiding those obvious environmental triggers that spark your flare-ups, along with gentle cleansers and moisturizers to calm the inflammation. With acne, the road toward clear skin is a little more customized depending on the type of acne you have—whether it’s a congested forehead, cystic pimples along the jaw, or a smattering of blemishes along your hairline. The good news is, identifying which skin condition you have is the first step toward the clear complexion we all crave. So the next time you’re feeling anxious about inflamed skin, try not to blindly react; a skin care analysis might do you some good.
