update-biofeedback, naturopath, elidel

[Guest guest]

well guys, here's an update:

been using elidel on part of my left cheek for over a week now... no

burning or some of the symptons common with elidel, but no reduction

in redness either . but like i said, my redness seems to be coming

from UNDERNEATH my skin (i cant explain it...you[d have to see.) id

be really curious to find out what the ratio is of inflammation

problems vs. the whole blood vessel issue inside my skin right now.

most likely its some mucky combination of the two. arent they

contributing to each other as dr nase says? anyhow..thats the elidel

story. (Then again, its only been 9 days or so.)

i went to a naturopath on friday; she seems to think that enzymes

play a large part in rosacea..at least the inflammatory aspect of it.

i didnt bother explaining all the vascular stuff to her in part

because i dont know if she'd understand and partly because theres so

much speculative detail about it that i would probably end up

confusing both her and myself even furhter. basically i'm going to

start taking an omegazyme during meals(has many different enyzmes in

it including lipase, protease, and many more) and bromelain enzyme

between meals . we'll see if it does anything. searching thru the

archives, i did find a few posts from people who said enzymes helped

reduce their redness. others said it helped their digestion but didnt

impact rosacea in the least. oh another thing! she did iridology on

me.. for those of you that havent heard of it, supposedly symptoms of

all your ailments as well as the performance of your organs can be

seen on the iris of your eye. ive always wanted it done on me ever

since i saw a demonstration at the local library a few years ago.

(who knows why the library..) anyway, first she showed me a bunch of

complex charts detailing places in the eye that correspond to

different parts of the body ..including liver,heart,spleen, skin,

breasts, thryoid, PH of blood, etc. she shined a light into my eyes

and told me that i had a little bit of systemic inflammation, as well

as some inflammation in skin and nose. my liver was a little weak and

she suggested detox using certain tea if i wanted, my flora was a

little low but she said i didnt really need to take acidophilus

unless i wanted to also (was on antibiotics earlier), colon rather

clogged/weak (hence the enzyme suggestion-- my digestion's pretty bad

for someone my age), heart, thyroid, right lung, and spleen were

healthy.. she said my blood PH was high and gave me a list of

alkaline foods to eat (i remember awhile ago, there was a lot of

discussion about alkaline vs. acidic foods) anyway looking at the

list i realize i do eat way too much acidic foods (carbs + meat

+dairy) and not so much fruit. she said i had strong blood

constitution which means im generally healthy.. and said she saw

nerve rings around the pupil and asked me if i was a nervous-type

highstrung person (which i am =P ) she went into a lot more detail

about the rest of the body and iridology which i wont post here just

because this is getting to be a bit too long and getting all over the

place...but i think it's really interesting nonetheless.

therapist: had two sessions so far. the first time was really just a

lot of self-pity sobbing and me explaining how rosacea is ruining my

life..heh. last week we started biofeedback. its pretty interesting

actually.. the first time she attached a wire with a thermometer-type

thing on the end of it to my finger.. its connected to a very

sensitive machine that takes the temperature of your skin. i have

cold hands...so mine leveled off to about 75 degrees or so (takes a

few minutes to gauge) . the eventual goal is to get your hands to

warm to about 95. then we tried deep breathign exercises...supposedly

when you breathe in , blood goes toward your face, when you exhale,

blood travels to the rest of your body in a downward motion. so i had

to practice exhaling twice as long as inhaling. after doign taht for

5 minutes the machine, which was rising and falling the whole time

with strange little beeps was up to 81. then, lying on the couch, i

put on headphones while she spoke autogenic phrases (the tape is so

i can practice on my own at home) .. its hard to describe, i guess

its mostly phrases that youre supposed to repeat inside similar to

relaxation technique phrases..but then youre supposed to focus on

drawing your blood towards your extremities simultaneously. i did

feel my hands become warmer, and they felt sort of tingly, as well as

my legs. the more you concentrate the better but im sort of an easily

distracted person so i sometimes lost track. by the end of that, my

hand temperature was 83. not toooo much difference but a little bit.

i'm supposed to practice every day with the tape of autogenic phrases

(has nice rainstorm sounds in the background..love it.) haha. its

hard not to fall asleep because its rather relaxing. hopefully i'll

get somewhere like this. the therapist explained that it's a lot like

practicing an instrument. in the beginning you really have to focus

on physically pressing the correct piano keys that youre mentally

meaning to play, but as you practice and become more acquainted with

it becomes a natural process and you don't need to think about it as

much; your fingers know where to put themselves. now i find myself

deep breathing during movies...reading...whenever i have some spare

time to sit for awhile without moving. its quite relaxing. after

doing the tape on my own i can really sense the relaxing effect it

has...a few times my face has been a bit warm before doing the tape,

and afterwards the feeling is gone. anyway,i have another session

today...my end goal in all this biofeedback is hopefully to flush

less and let my blood start flowing to other places in my frozen

extremeties... i have hypnotherapy coming up in a few weeks which

will address the blushing aspect. i would really rahter learn to

control it on my own rahter than resort to antihypertensives and beta

blockers. now if i coudl only do somethign about the REAL problem

with the damn overactive /(overabundant even?)/too close to the

surface blood vessels... but i think its also important to address

these contributing factors (blushing/flushing) as well, so i dont

really see it as a waste of time even if it does seem to be a

roundabout way of doing things.

goodness that was too long... any questions about this extremely

unnecessarily long email feel free to email me.

[Guest guest]

well guys, here's an update:

been using elidel on part of my left cheek for over a week now... no

burning or some of the symptons common with elidel, but no reduction

in redness either . but like i said, my redness seems to be coming

from UNDERNEATH my skin (i cant explain it...you[d have to see.) id

be really curious to find out what the ratio is of inflammation

problems vs. the whole blood vessel issue inside my skin right now.

most likely its some mucky combination of the two. arent they

contributing to each other as dr nase says? anyhow..thats the elidel

story. (Then again, its only been 9 days or so.)

i went to a naturopath on friday; she seems to think that enzymes

play a large part in rosacea..at least the inflammatory aspect of it.

i didnt bother explaining all the vascular stuff to her in part

because i dont know if she'd understand and partly because theres so

much speculative detail about it that i would probably end up

confusing both her and myself even furhter. basically i'm going to

start taking an omegazyme during meals(has many different enyzmes in

it including lipase, protease, and many more) and bromelain enzyme

between meals . we'll see if it does anything. searching thru the

archives, i did find a few posts from people who said enzymes helped

reduce their redness. others said it helped their digestion but didnt

impact rosacea in the least. oh another thing! she did iridology on

me.. for those of you that havent heard of it, supposedly symptoms of

all your ailments as well as the performance of your organs can be

seen on the iris of your eye. ive always wanted it done on me ever

since i saw a demonstration at the local library a few years ago.

(who knows why the library..) anyway, first she showed me a bunch of

complex charts detailing places in the eye that correspond to

different parts of the body ..including liver,heart,spleen, skin,

breasts, thryoid, PH of blood, etc. she shined a light into my eyes

and told me that i had a little bit of systemic inflammation, as well

as some inflammation in skin and nose. my liver was a little weak and

she suggested detox using certain tea if i wanted, my flora was a

little low but she said i didnt really need to take acidophilus

unless i wanted to also (was on antibiotics earlier), colon rather

clogged/weak (hence the enzyme suggestion-- my digestion's pretty bad

for someone my age), heart, thyroid, right lung, and spleen were

healthy.. she said my blood PH was high and gave me a list of

alkaline foods to eat (i remember awhile ago, there was a lot of

discussion about alkaline vs. acidic foods) anyway looking at the

list i realize i do eat way too much acidic foods (carbs + meat

+dairy) and not so much fruit. she said i had strong blood

constitution which means im generally healthy.. and said she saw

nerve rings around the pupil and asked me if i was a nervous-type

highstrung person (which i am =P ) she went into a lot more detail

about the rest of the body and iridology which i wont post here just

because this is getting to be a bit too long and getting all over the

place...but i think it's really interesting nonetheless.

therapist: had two sessions so far. the first time was really just a

lot of self-pity sobbing and me explaining how rosacea is ruining my

life..heh. last week we started biofeedback. its pretty interesting

actually.. the first time she attached a wire with a thermometer-type

thing on the end of it to my finger.. its connected to a very

sensitive machine that takes the temperature of your skin. i have

cold hands...so mine leveled off to about 75 degrees or so (takes a

few minutes to gauge) . the eventual goal is to get your hands to

warm to about 95. then we tried deep breathign exercises...supposedly

when you breathe in , blood goes toward your face, when you exhale,

blood travels to the rest of your body in a downward motion. so i had

to practice exhaling twice as long as inhaling. after doign taht for

5 minutes the machine, which was rising and falling the whole time

with strange little beeps was up to 81. then, lying on the couch, i

put on headphones while she spoke autogenic phrases (the tape is so

i can practice on my own at home) .. its hard to describe, i guess

its mostly phrases that youre supposed to repeat inside similar to

relaxation technique phrases..but then youre supposed to focus on

drawing your blood towards your extremities simultaneously. i did

feel my hands become warmer, and they felt sort of tingly, as well as

my legs. the more you concentrate the better but im sort of an easily

distracted person so i sometimes lost track. by the end of that, my

hand temperature was 83. not toooo much difference but a little bit.

i'm supposed to practice every day with the tape of autogenic phrases

(has nice rainstorm sounds in the background..love it.) haha. its

hard not to fall asleep because its rather relaxing. hopefully i'll

get somewhere like this. the therapist explained that it's a lot like

practicing an instrument. in the beginning you really have to focus

on physically pressing the correct piano keys that youre mentally

meaning to play, but as you practice and become more acquainted with

it becomes a natural process and you don't need to think about it as

much; your fingers know where to put themselves. now i find myself

deep breathing during movies...reading...whenever i have some spare

time to sit for awhile without moving. its quite relaxing. after

doing the tape on my own i can really sense the relaxing effect it

has...a few times my face has been a bit warm before doing the tape,

and afterwards the feeling is gone. anyway,i have another session

today...my end goal in all this biofeedback is hopefully to flush

less and let my blood start flowing to other places in my frozen

extremeties... i have hypnotherapy coming up in a few weeks which

will address the blushing aspect. i would really rahter learn to

control it on my own rahter than resort to antihypertensives and beta

blockers. now if i coudl only do somethign about the REAL problem

with the damn overactive /(overabundant even?)/too close to the

surface blood vessels... but i think its also important to address

these contributing factors (blushing/flushing) as well, so i dont

really see it as a waste of time even if it does seem to be a

roundabout way of doing things.

goodness that was too long... any questions about this extremely

unnecessarily long email feel free to email me.