If rosacea has been a long-term problem for you, I strongly recommend that you invest some time with a physician with special expertise in the condition so that your unique symptoms can be properly diagnosed. Reputable physicians will insist on making a diagnosis before they treat you, but multiple repeat visits are usually not required. In the meantime, here are some safe, effective, and inexpensive treatments you can do on your own.

The healing foods for rosacea are the “three B’s,” blackberries, blueberries, and buckwheat. Cherries, raspberries, and other dark-blue or dark-red fruits are also helpful. Avoid alcohol, caffeine, sodas, and any other beverage that makes you flush.

The “three B’s” plus cherries and raspberries are especially rich sources of anthocyanidins and proanthocyanidins, the pigments that give them their blue and red colors. Anthocyanidins and proanthocyanidins increase the integrity of the ground substance, the “cement” between blood vessels and soft tissues. They prevent the vasodilation, which causes facial flushes. They also maintain vascular health by increasing the integrity of the walls of capillaries and arterioles. This reduces the risk of rhinophyma, enlarged nose and puffy cheeks.

The bioflavonoid prominent in buckwheat, rutin, is especially useful in preventing facial flushes. In one clinical study, buckwheat tea standardized to yield 270 mg of rutin was given to 77 patients with varicose veins. In this condition blood vessels break down in a manner similar to that in rosacea. After 3 months, most patients showed a significant reduction in the total volume of the leg, indicating that both the veins had tightened. “Tighter” veins in the face and nose are less prone to redness and less sensitive to changes in temperature.

If you take rutin, take at least 100 mg of vitamin C every day. Rutin helps vitamin C regenerate itself by protecting it from oxidation, but it also slows the rate at which vitamin C is absorbed by cells. If you take rutin, you need to stay a little ahead of your body’s vitamin C requirements. Rutin will interfere with action of quinolone antibiotics (not to be confused with the anabolic steroid quinolone). The long list of antibiotics that may interact with rutin includes Cipro, Norxacin, Orixacin, Oroflox, Penetrex, Raxar, Tequin, Uriflox, and Zagam.

Many naturopaths recommend vitamin B supplements to their patients with rosacea on the basis of a very old study that found that, at least in lab rats, the mite Demodex folliculorum only infects riboflavin-deficient skin. Complete vitamin B supplements provide riboflavin balanced with other B vitamins.

It is especially important not to overdose, since one of the B vitamins, niacin, can actually cause skin outbreaks similar to rosacea when taken in a dosage exceeding 3000 mg per day. This dosage, however, corresponds to taking more than 30 times the recommended amount of vitamin B complex. And it is not possible to get this amount of needed vitamin B from whole foods.

Read Vitamins for Acne and Alpha-Hydroxy Acids & Acne. Robert Rister is the author or co-author of nine books on natural health.