The use of herbal remedies and garlic for rosacea

antibiotics

People who suffer from rosacea and who are treated with antibiotics for a long period of time are more prone to fungal infections. Using antibiotics over a long period of time can decrease normal populations of bacteria and increase the number of fungi.

Most treatments have side effects, these vary from person to person and depend on a number of factors, including diet. A treatment that works for one person with minimal or no side effects will not work for another person. Dosages also vary from person to person and are also affected by a number of factors.

Diet:

Typically, a person can enjoy or eat a type of yogurt, which helps maintain the balance of bacteria in their diet and thus can help decrease the bacterial population in the gut. Another person may eat small amounts of herbs and spices that are known to have antibacterial properties. Garlic is well known as a natural antibiotic and antibacterial with reports dating back to history. It has been suggested that it might help fight acne, and a report of its use for rosacea also suggests this might be the case.

Herbal remedies work for some people: It is suggested that a significant problem with herbal remedies for rosacea sufferers may be the variable ‘natural dose’ if the herb or spice is not made into a tablet with a known dose.

Garlic

One person with severe rosacea for about 5 years had pulsed light treatment, antibiotic treatment, and eliminated gluten from her diet. Gluten removal eliminated most but not all of the rosacea. Then the person got a nasty infection and started taking nine garlic tablets a day for about a week and then cut back to 6 a day. They say, “The rosacea is practically gone and they even binge gluten on Thanksgiving and drank red wine without having a flare.”

Analyzing why this worked for this person: The gluten-free diet: Several articles on the Internet suggest that a gluten-free diet helps when the digestive system has been affected by antibiotics. So this may have helped because the person was taking antibiotics. A gluten-free diet is suggested to help the gut return to normal after antibiotic treatment.

Garlic tablets.

Be careful if you try garlic, it is reported to be a trigger for about 10% of patients.

Garlic tablets are suggested to have worked for several reasons:

1) The use of garlic tablets after antibiotic treatment and a gluten-free diet may be significant. Perhaps after the other treatments had taken effect but not cured the rosacea. The use of antibiotics would not have been a long-term solution.

Perhaps garlic tablets were then the equivalent of the ‘last straw’. On their own before the other treatments, they may not have cured the rosacea. This is speculative, they could have been effective. Clinical trials are needed to answer this question and also to identify whether garlic produced a lasting cure, as is expected to have been the case.

Garlic, like many natural herbs and spices that are antibacterial, does not affect the ‘good bacteria’, which is why most people can eat and enjoy herbs and spices. Therefore, the person who was now going to take the garlic tablet long-term should have been able to do so.

2) The dose of garlic was controlled by the use of tablets. Consider eating slices of garlic pizza; having 2 slices instead of 1 will double the dose. This would be the equivalent of the person taking 18 tablets instead of 9.

One chef may add three times the amount of garlic as another. This combined with the above would be the equivalent of a person taking 54 tablets instead of 9

One chef may use concentrated garlic from a tube, another may use pressed garlic cloves. Again, the amount of garlic in a slice will vary significantly.

The active ingredient in garlic cloves will also vary depending on when and where it was grown and the ‘variety’. All plants and fruits have different varieties, for example consider the different varieties of apple.

Using garlic tablets allowed the dose to be accurately maintained for the first week and then accurately reduced by 1/3.

Garlic seemed to help rosacea that affected the eyes: the person had very bad rosacea and had horribly lumpy cheeks at the worst time, it also affected her eyes and she used moisturizing eye drops five or more times a day. Since the garlic tablets, they have barely needed to use the moisturizing eye drops. There may be a reason for this related to the way the smells of onions and garlic can make the eyes water.

If a person eats a lot of garlic, the smell can actually ‘come off the skin’ and that person may have a ‘garlic’ smell.

So garlic in the body is likely to make it to the skin of the eyelids and perhaps the tears or tear ducts, in which case the sensitive nerve that ends on the surface of the eye (which reacts when you peel onions ) and this smell touches them) send a message to the brain that ‘makes the eyes wet’.

Addendum: Another rosacea sufferer who was warned that garlic could be a trigger says, “I feel like garlic doesn’t really bother my skin. It may be that I eat it mostly as part of a salad dressing with olive oil.” In any case, I’ve been wondering if garlic might actually be helping, since it’s known to have some antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties.”