Trigger tracking is the second step in the rosacea sequence. Once you have noted early signs, find out what sets off a flush, using a diary kept in the same format every day.
What to gather for a trigger diary
You need a notebook or a notes app, a clock and a few categories to fill in each day: food and drink, products, activity and weather. The American Academy of Dermatology's Rosacea Resource Center is a good place to check which categories to include before you start. Readers in Merced or anywhere in Madera County can add a note on where they were when a flush started.
Walking through a diary day
- Record the time of any flush and how long it lasted.
- Write down what you ate and drank in the hours before it.
- Note every product on your face, including new ones.
- Add what you were doing and what the weather was like.
- Change only one habit at a time, so you can tell what mattered.
Alcohol: the drinks column
Cleveland Clinic notes that alcohol can dilate the tiny blood vessels in the face, causing the face to flush. That makes drinks the first column worth keeping honest. The rest of your list should come from your own entries rather than from a generic list.
Your clinician's trigger short list versus published lists
Published pages such as All About Rosacea are material you can read in advance. Which triggers matter for you is a judgment your clinician makes from your diary, so expect their short list to differ from any general one.
Two weeks of entries, then the map beyond the cheeks
The rosacea beyond the cheeks guide follows, widening the checklist past the face areas you have been logging. MedlinePlus keeps an entry on rosacea that is handy for checking terms. Print or save two weeks of diary entries for your visit first.