Face Gets Cool During Workout

[coldbliss]

OK...This rosacea thing is a complete mystery.

I work out for an hour in the evening after work at least four days out of the week. I spend 30 minutes on cardio works (i.e. bikes, steppers, treadmills) and another 30 minutes on weight training.

I discovered to my pleasant suprise is that excercise calms my facial skin. How do I know this? I touch my high flush zone areas such as the cheeks, forehead and nose. As I workout, my facial skin COOLS OFF! There is negligible increase of redness. But aaaah, it feels great to touch cool skin.

So I am confused here. Why do dermatologists and "rosacea experts" say that excercise increases flushing and inflammation? If anything my flushing and "skin stress" diminish after a brisk one-hour workout. Does excercise causes blood vessels to constrict in the face?

I take a lukewarm shower after I workout. The flushing does not increase much and my face is calm during the entire evening.

Go figure.

[drnase]

Cold Bliss,

In many posts, I must use the term "most" or "in general" because I cannot possibly cover all the variants, so the wisest approach is to cover the topic by how "most" rosacea sufferrers will respond.

Most rosacea sufferers will flush during aerobic and anaerobic (weightlifting) excercise because of increased sympsthetic dilator activity to the face to realease heat. This is also the reason one sweats.

In some cases like yours, excercise helps. This is great. No explanation, educated guesses or even gobbly gook to explain it. The only suggestion is to do what you are doing -- listen to your rosacea and learn about your own individual rosacea. In some cases similar to yours they go through a vigorous two hour work out with a completely pale face, walk out the door of the gym, get into their car, turn on the air conditioner and THEN start to flush. So be cautious of this. Once again no explanation from me. Listen to your body. You can never go wrong with that advice.

[Lycaon]

Coldbliss Hi,

My experiences are quite similar to yours. On occasion I do go pale in th egym, I look around and see 'no-rosaceans' with bright red gym faces. Im not quite sure how it works, but I find that in the gym my increased sweating seems to counteract the redness forming. Possibly in such conditions in the gym, my cooling mechanism is the sweating and in some form overides the flush impulse. However the sweating does appear to bring out a slight rash around my temples. After leaving the gym, I sometimes do get a flush or a tightness in the face that feels like the vessels underneath are trying to break out. But often a gym session prevents any form of flush in the evening at all. I think im quite a mixed bag. Its very difficult to assess triggers, as I can flush under almost all stimuli, but not all the time. My face does often need to be in a 'pre-flush'state, for me to flush, when because of the warmth, I know that any stimuli will provoke a response. But I have to say that, if you find something rewarding like exercise and enjoy it and it calms you, be careful but hang on to the enjoyment