I have very similar rosey-ness on my face, especially the little red veins...those are the worst! I've been told by two doctors that it is rosacea. I guess I just really didn't want to accept that. I find though that the redness improves a lot when my face is adequately moisturized. I switched to CeraVe hydrating cleanser, apply moisturizing masks and emu oil. It sounds crazy if you have acne prone skin, but it helps significantly. For me, glycolic peels help a lot as well. If you're open to more invasive (and expensive) treatments you could talk to a derm about different laser treatments.

I have had combined acne and rosacea. My skin looked similar to yours years ago. I cleared my acne through hormonal treatment but the rosacea is still there, and rosacea only gets worse, so it looks much worse than yours now.

Not all rosacea flushes.

I'm looking into laser treatments because frankly there is no cure. I've done the whole gamut of rosacea treatments, both prescription and holistic. What I would recommend is treat the acne first and then look into laser for the rosacea. It's much easier to treat the rosacea once the active acne is gone. Most laser treatments you can't do with active acne anyway...and acne's constant inflammation will make rosacea worse faster.

Thank you both for your helpful and informative advice. You're both on spironolactone? I'll have to try and persuade my derm to prescribe that to me but I think i'll have a hard time of it seeing as I am from the uk and most derms here seem to dismiss it.

GreenGables - I also seem to have a bit of a red rash on my chest, is it possible for rosacea to spread there too?

I read your story on how you cleared your acne; it's very inspiring to me and gives me a bit of hope. If you don't mind my asking, how long did you suffer with acne before you got it under control?

Goodluck with your laser treatments!

i wish i knew the answer but my face looks exactly like yours. Big pores, redness, blotchiness. Basically an overall crappy looking complexion. I feel no one knows the answer anymore..

My skin looked exactly like yours when I had active acne. I agree that you should deal with clearing up the acne first before looking into treatments for the possible rosacea/ complexion problems. My doctor told me I had rosacea when I first started getting acne because I had so much redness and complexion issues contributed with rosacea, but it just turned out that the inflammation from the acne, and probably the treatments I was using, was causing the all over redness. This could be the case with you. It appears that a majority of your acne is located on your chin, just like mine was, and I truly believe this is hormonal. I took Accutane, which cleared me up, but I believe if I had taken Spiro I would have seen just as good of results. I definitely think it would be a good idea to ask your derm about it. As for the enlarged pores, I have found that retin-a has worked wonders for my skin. I'm also going to look into laser treatments, and I have heard that the CO2 laser gives great results. You may consider looking into that once you've cleared up the active acne. Anyway, I wish the best of luck to you. Your skin is really not even close to being as bad as you think it is. Keep your chin up, you will find something that works for your skin!

Thank you so much for all your advice. I'm really worried about my skin as it's also quite thin too. I hope I can find a way through this. I'm so depressed and scared all the time.

hows your skin going now? have you had any luck, or know exactly what it is?