To be worried about my face?

[purplebatbear]

Ok. So this is an odd one, but I'm stumped and I need help/suggestions.
Before anyone says anything - I'm definitely going to mention this to my doctor but as it's the Easter Weekend, there's not much I can do!

I've noticed over the past week or so that something really odd is going on with the skin on my face.

When I wash my face, my skin always reddens up quite a bit. Always has done.

But I've noticed odd bright white patches on both my cheeks that are really visible after I wash my face. They're not so noticeable normally but they really show up at that point.

One side is larger than the other and they kind of look like someone has dragged a couple of fingers down my cheek horizontally from under my eye/near my nose to the bottom of my jaw under my ear.

It's really really odd! The skin looks a lot paler at that point than my skin is usually and the rest of my face does the usual bright red thing.

I've also had bouts of neuralgia in one of the areas where I've felt like a static electric feeling or the sensation of cold water splashing on my face. I have fibromyalgia, so I put that down to that.

Has anyone had anything similar? I don't want to go Dr. Googling too much.

Try a wash for sensitive skin or even just wash your face with water for a day or 2.

Sounds too harsh. And hormonal changes as you age means stuff that used to be ok isn't any more

The redness could be rosacea and the white patches could be vitiligo.

Your skin reddening means it's not happy.

I have sensitive skin and was brought up to have a good scrub.

I don't think you're ill I think your skin is unhappy.

Everything is use is hypoallergenic but I'll see if I can find anything that might be even more gentle (not sure if I can but it's worth a look)!

The redness is only when I wash but the vitiligo sounds very plausible. Can that just develop? It looks like my skin is very briefly painted randomly with white streaks. So odd!!!

Thank you all you lovely people, by the way!!!

I'm sensitive to many hypoallergenic brands including pricey ones (Clinique).

The red then white is your skin going arrrgh.

I can't use any face washes.

Over 40 years I have learned

Simple eye make up remover
Aveeno stuff is good, I use the body lotion on my face
Clarins is lovely but £££

You have to experiment

When I was pregnant my skin was really sensitive and I washed it by putting a load of non perfumed aveeno on and wiping it off with cotton wool. Even hot water made it look angry

So experiment. Don't scrub! Be gentle. I think that will help :)

Thank you so much!! I'll definitely look into all of those. Xxx

Go really gentle

Price is irrelevant

Good luck!

(I was told I had rosacea when I was young. Nope. Just encouraged to scrub and skin didn't like it).

I love the Simple cleansing oil (about £7 for a bottle and lasts for ages) because the oil goes onto the skin before any water it may help protect your skin a little bit? It has done wonders for my spot prone ridiculously sensitive skin so maybe worth a try.

purplebatbear If it's vitiligo there's little you can do, but see your GP as there are some treatments available.
If it is vitiligo you'll need to be very vigorous with sun block and hats as you will burn very easily (no melanin in that part of the skin).
Do you have the white patches anywhere else?

And yes, vitiligo can just develop. It's an auto-immune disorder.

Yes vitiligo can just develop. I developed it when I was 21 and pregnant with my son.

However the patches are permanently there and not much you can do about 8t.

I'm a 100 percentbde pigmented now.

You can have UV treatment for vitiligo, but it has limited success. Ditto for topical steroid creams. I think the success rate is in the region of 50-60%.

I have vitiligo on my tummy, just a small patch, always been there.

It's unpigmented all the time.

Have you by any chance changed hormonal contraceptive recently? I had something similar on my thigh years ago which made patches of my skin more sensitive to heat or sunlight - so the other parts weren’t paler but looked like it in contrast.

That does sound a bit strange! Slightly useless advice I know, but it sounds like quite an easy condition to take a photo of and send to the GP? On the plus side, because it's so visible hopefully they can make a diagnosis/put your mind at rest more quickly.

I have changed contraception! His odd. I think I might speak to the doctor this week just to be on the safe side. It's like glow-in-the-dark bright white!