Hi Ruth, I was so amazed to see your recovery - you look fantastic! I too have Rosacea (ocular as well) and have been on low-dose antibiotics forever and I've had enough! Could you please give me a little more information regarding the diet you used to help your skin heal? Perhaps a typical day of eating? Did you take any supplements? Any and all information you could give me would be enormously appreciated!!! Thank you so much, Take care, ... 
Hello ...,
First I must say - I didn't heal.
It is an every single meal battle! If I move from it a bit - the same day I start having the same problems again. So I must tell you - I am not selling anything like other people do. I really want to offer my sincere help - after having going through it myself.
Please read the books - The Tao of health ... and - Fat that Heals...In the books it is explained very easy to understand how our body functions as one unit, and a terrible skin disorder in the face is not a face problem. (It is like we have smoke coming out of the exhaust of the car and instead of checking the engine, we close the pipe with a lid so we don't see the smoke). Rosacea is like a check engine light turned on. We cannot remove the bulb of the check engine light and say every thing is ok. There is a much serious problem here.
To make it short - people that suffer from Rosacea (which actually this is a side effect of a different condition) have a very porous lining of the intestines and the colon. If we don't keep ourselves clean inside - it comes out from the skin.
Daniel Reid writes in his book The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity about digestion:
“...Anyone should be able to figure out what therefore happens when you ingest protein and starch together. Acid and alkaline juices are secreted simultaneously in response to the incoming protein and starch, promptly neutralizing one another and leaving a weak, watery solution in the stomach that digests neither protein nor starch properly. Instead, the proteins putrefy and the starches ferment owing to the constant presence of bacteria in the digestive tract.
This putrefaction and fermentation are the primary cause of all sorts of digestive distress, including gas, heartburn, cramps, bloating, constipation, foul stools, bleeding piles, colitis, and so forth. Many so-called “allergies” are also the direct result of improper food combinations: the bloodstream picks up toxins from the putrefied, fermented mess as it passes slowly through the intestines, and these toxins in turn cause rashes, hives, headaches, nausea and other symptoms commonly branded as “allergies”...
... The final fact of the matter is this: when you immobilize your stomach and impair digestive functions by consuming foods in indiscriminate combinations, the bacteria in your alimentary canal have a field day. They get all the nutrients and thrive, while you get all the wastes and suffer.
According to a recent survey in America, the average American male today carries about 5 pounds of undigested, putrefied red meat in his gut. Leave 5 pounds of meat in a dark, warm, moist place for a few days and see for yourself the results of putrefaction. The severely septic condition of the human intestinal tracts is unique in nature, yet Western physicians take it for granted and even insist that it is harmless to the rest of the system.
In fact, however, in order to protect itself from the chronic toxic irritation of improperly combined meals, the colon secretes large quantities of mucus to entrap toxic particles before they damage the colon’s sensitive lining. When this occurs at every meal, every day, every week, throughout the year – as is quite typical in modern Western diets – the colon ends up secreting a constant stream of mucus, which accumulates and gets impacted in the folds of the colon. This results in a narrowing of the passage through the colon and a constant seeping of toxins into the bloodstream by osmosis. When the impacting of toxic mucus in the colon reaches a critical pressure, it causes a pocket to balloon outward through the colon lining, causing a condition called diverticulitis. Colitis and cancer are the next stages of colon deterioration caused by these conditions.”
Also from this book:
“...These skin conditions are caused mainly by excessive putrefactive waste matter in the body’s excretory channels, and extreme acidosis of blood due to accumulation of toxic wastes; when wastes are retained and the colon is clogged, the body purges toxins through the skin and lungs, where these toxins cause abscesses, tumors, inflammation and eruptions. Also due specifically to poor metabolism of fats.”
So: This is a partial list of what I don't eat:
- No cow products in any form (meat, dairy or even byproducts hidden in cereals) - it is very hard to digest and it becomes putrid in our intestines.
- No hydrogenated fat!!!!!!!!!! This is the hardest because when I look at the labels in the store almost everything contains hydrogenated fat. (So no butter, no ice cream, no margarine, no mayonnaise, no readymade dressings, and of course - check the labels of cakes, cookies, bread and every single baked product in the planet!)
- No "diet foods" - they contain artificial additives - when there is a word I don't understand - it is probably manufactured.
-No fried food.
-No chocolate.
-Be very careful in restaurants (the only one I trust is Sweet Tomatoes)
-Spices - very limited - some kind of peppers are very harsh on my skin - No sugar (the sugars cause to the food to ferment in our intestines)
- No alcoholic drinks -I don’t expose my face to the sun.
Besides this - I eat everything else. As much fresh as possible. As much raw as possible.
As you see, apparently, what I was doing before I started this way of life wasn't helping me. The easiest is to think fresh - fresh foods.
A sample of my daily diet:
My breakfast:
Grated carrots with orange juice (a whole bowl- maybe 3-4 carrots) 1 spoon of sesame seeds and flax seeds powdered with a coffee grinder to a powder (for calcium instead of the milk) Green tea, - sometimes toast (check the bread for dairy or hydrogenated fat) with avocado.
My lunch:
Fresh salad (without any kind of cheese), a baked potato (no butter or sour cream of course) Sometimes soups (I make sure to cook every thing myself to make sure no hidden ingredients are in the pot!) vegetable soup, lentil soup, I add couscous, brown rice, some very little chicken (without the skin - it is FAT! = not good), sometimes pasta (improvise with the sauce - raw tomatoes, onions and garlic), fish - great on the grill (like salmon). and fresh fruits all throughout the day when I feel hungry. Eggs (hard boiled). 
Try warm toasted everything bagel with some olive oil. Some times I bake some cookies or banana breads and I substitute the shortening with canola oil.
And really if you want some more, just take a book from the library about cooking vegetarian or vegan. Improvise, but the most important thing to remember is not to try to imitate cow products with tofu or stuff like that - it doesn't taste good and you feel sorry for yourself.
The peaches are in season now and they smell and look so great!
What happens with antibiotics is that it kills the bacteria in our body - the good and the bad. I had it too and it caused me terrible yeast infections.
Regarding supplements: As you see, because I don't eat so many things, I have to be constantly aware of what I eat. If you have enough fresh food and consider proteins, vitamins and minerals - the real fresh food has it all. It was created that way. It was designed to have it all. I make sure to combine grains, seeds, fruits, and olive oil. 
Again, It didn't happen overnight. It took me almost two years to have a clean face. I will not trade it for any egg roll or dove chocolate!
Do what I did -I told my husband to take that awful picture the day I was willing to do everything to change my appearance and I posted it in front of the refrigerator. It was enough! And slowly I started seeing improvement.
Please, read that books. It will help you a lot.
Wishing you a great journey...
Ruth P.S.
If you are interested I can send you some easy recipes.
So what is it that helps me?
Rosacea - It really is about watching what you eat.
Reaching the state with my face so it will look clean and with a normal color without any blemishes or association with Rosacea, took me about 2 years. I wasn't sure I really wanted to embark in such a commitment. I was living "FDA approved"!!! To give you an example I will give you a list of my daily food consumption. For breakfast I had coffee with some bread and cottage cheese, some jelly or cereal (the sweet kind) with milk, and that's it. I liked to keep my body lean so I always chose the "diet" foods (those without calories and without any nutrition in them (unless it had some artificial enforcement!). I ate crackers, cookies, cakes, very limited amount of fresh foods, for lunch I had chicken or meat, I liked to cook Chinese food - stir fried. I had a lot of different dishes of pasta with sauces and ground beef. I drank a lot of soda - the diet kind. I loved it! I used to make for dinner all kind of heavy Mediterranean dishes with spices and flavorful meats, white rice and a lot of fried choices. Cakes and more cakes, ice cream for desserts, any kind, especially with nuts and chocolate. MMM... Just thinking about all this...
And during all this time I was treating my rosacea in the conventional way - using topical creams under the prescription of my doctor. I was willing to do everything. I reached a point that I was so depressed and ashamed of my look, I felt very sorry for myself. I thought every body is looking at my terrible face and I couldn't understand how people actually talk to me. How can they look at me? And my husband, so patient, so supportive... He was helping me with whatever new "idea" I read or heard about my Rosacea.
And then one day I met one of my neighbors that used to do acupuncture for living and he gave me that book that I mentioned (the Tao... way of life book) and he told me to stop using any medication and just go for it.
After much thought (which it really wasn't necessary because my face was yelling at me from the mirror) I decided to follow the rules of the book by the letter.
I stopped eating anything processed. ANYTHING! If something I wanted to buy, had in the list of ingredients a name that I couldn't pronounce or that I suspected that it was laboratory manufactured - I didn't eat that. Period. After reading the book, and actually understanding that my body is one unit and not - face separate, hands separate and so on, I realize that I was poisoned and my body was throwing up from all my pores!
I understood that Rosacea is like a check engine light lit in the dash board of the car. What I used to do with the medication, actually was removing the little bulb so the light wouldn't come on, instead of taking care of the problem. I was poisoned. Beside of Rosacea I had also Candida and nothing in my body was functioning right.
So I decided to take baby steps.
First of all I eliminated any dairy (including any kind of cheese, creamers, ice-cream, milk) and cow products. I realize after reading the book that cow products are not human friendly.
Eating meat was causing me being constipated and it didn't help me to my well being. I felt bloated and heavy. My body needed to be clean inside and outside. And the milk products - well they are made for little calves. ( And how a cottage cheese can last in the refrigerator for almost 3 weeks?)
So I made sure to eliminate that.
Also I stopped drinking soda - especially that kind of soda from the machine with ice. Because I knew I had Candida - these machines are full of mildew (especially in the ice) and in the nozzles, and I actually was drinking for my fun a glass full of mildew to help my Candida flourish!
I must say - it wasn't easy to stop drinking soda. I was addicted to it. I loved it...
Also I read that people with Rosacea have very little hydrochloric acid in their stomach so I needed any little acid I had in my stomach to use it for digestion of my foods before it moved on to the intestines and not to dilute this acid with the soda.
Removing these items was already hard for me. But I didn't see much improvement yet. One big improvement I saw was - I was full of energy. I wasn't as tired as I used to be and I really felt like if I removed a heavy house from my back!
It was hard to start the day. What will be my breakfast now? I love coffee, but without milk or cream it is not the same. So I stopped drinking coffee - and by wonders - my high blood pressure also went down!
I had to move all my food around to a new system!
After reading the book about the fats "Fats that heal and fats that kill" (which I read because the book about Rosacea from Arlen Brownstein and Donna Shoemaker mention the problem of metabolizing fats by people that have Rosacea) I realized what is hydrogenated fat. SOME ITEMS ARE MARKED THAT THEY DON'T CONTAIN TRANS FAT BUT THEY CONTAIN HYDROGENATED FATS.
It is bad, bad, bad for us. It is like eating rubber. It is badddddddddd!!!!!!!!
So I stopped eating that. And let me tell you - this was the hardest! When you go to buy food from the supermarket and you look in the list of ingredients of any item for hydrogenated fats - EVERYTHING contains hydrogenated fat.
But I made my decision and so I removed that from my daily consumption. This was what really made the change! I removed anything processed from my daily diet.
My face started to look clearer, but it took about 2 years to reach the point were my face was not red anymore.
Today, I am a new person. My face is clear, I am full of energy, I have normal bowel movements and I know my rosacea is under control. I didn't heal. It is just under control. I have to stay away from all these products as if I am allergic to them. Which this is what I would have done if I was allergic to hydrogenated fat, or cow products.
What nobody tells you...
I wanted to share my story to help others that are in the same situation that I was until 9 years ago.
This picture was taken at the peak of the worst moments, when I decided that from now something must change.
After seeing my picture then, and comparing to the way you see me today, you can see that there is a solution. I don't know what you heard and read so far.
I will tell you from my experience what worked for me. Just to make sure, I am telling you that I am not a doctor and I don't have any interest in telling you my story other than feeling and knowing how you feel and knowing that there is a solution to obtain beautiful smooth skin.
Since I can remember myself, I always had pimples and acne. It started when I was around 11 and it lasted forever. I always wanted to be pretty and there is nothing more important for a girl than to feel and look pretty.
Besides the actual pain that acne inflict in the skin sometimes, there is the pain in the heart – seeing all the beautiful girls with their smooth skin and thinking all time – why I am not like that....
Anyways, I will try to explain what I did as easy and clear as possible. Please know that my battle is a daily battle. I cannot move from my way even a bit. Even a little single mistake and there I have a proof on my face of what I did.
So, after visiting many beauticians over the years, going through many hurting treatments, taking all different kinds of medications– creams, antibiotic, liquids and what not, I got to a point (as you see in the picture) when I decided that I don't have to accept what doctors and beauticians tell me. The picture was taken at a time when I was using a common prescription cream for Rosacea and the doctor told me that there is nothing she can give me because "I am using the best thing in the market" I will find my solution – whatever it takes.
And I started reading about the subject. Every book I read has references in the end for other books and so I borrow from the library as many as I could and read them all. The most important ones that made the change were:
Fats that Heal and Fats that Kill by Udo Erasmus – He explains how fat that we consume works in the body. It has a lot of chemistry explanation which is very boring and you can skip it. It is good to read it to understand how the different kind of fat that we eat influences our skin.
And also the book The Tao of Health Sex and Longevity by Daniel Reid
(From the book: These skin conditions are caused mainly by excessive putrefactive waste matter in the body's excretory channels, and extreme acidosis of blood due to accumulation of toxic wastes; when wastes are retained and the colon is clogged, the body purges toxins through the skin and lungs, where these toxins cause abscesses, tumors, inflammation and eruptions...." and he continues " Foods to avoid: deep fat fried foods; refined starch and sugar; hydrogenated fats; cooked fatty meats, especially hamburgers on white buns; hot peppers; chocolate.")
In short I will explain:
I believe you understand the metabolism – everything we eat must go out in some way.
We have a few systems that clean our body – the one everybody knows – going to the restroom, another one is the lungs – the body tries to get rid of the antibodies with the help of the mucus and also we have the glands of sweat – people that eat a lot of spicy food – their sweat smells bad. Also and the most important for us (me) is the skin. The skin is one of the major cleaning systems in our body. Whatever we eat and our body cannot metabolize normally (i.e. restroom) will go out from our skin. Period. No other way. So – Let see what we do that goes out from our skin.
As you will read on that book – some people have all kind of allergies. Some people (like me) have a weird allergy – in a way – nobody will tell you it is an allergy – too much money involved – the manufacturers, the doctors, refineries, factories of food and more.
To make the story short – it is hydrogenated fat and partially hydrogenated fat that does it. Converting the natural state of fats. The normal molecular structure of the fat is the culprit! Also margarine, mayonnaise, different dressings, butter, and heating the oils to high temperatures (above 180 degrees – which automatically means avoiding fried foods!)
Think- oil – olive oil – how it is made?
There are the olives and the seeds. The olives are pressed with huge pressers and the oil comes out. This is great oil – it is like fresh orange juice. It is very very healthy and our body needs it. For what? - Our cells are made like a balloon. The outer part is like a little bag and the inner part is the one with all the information and DNA. The outer balloon of the cell is made of fat. That is it. And it will be made from the fats that we eat. Good fat – good outer cells for us. Bad fat – bad outer cells for us.
Manufacturers don't use olive oil. For many reasons, and the main one is – price. So after many trials they figured a way to reduce the price, keep the items longer on the shelf and the taste is not so strong – using hydrogenated fat and partially hydrogenated fat. If you check the labels of cakes, cookies, cereal (even candy) ice cream, breads, and many many baked goods you can see it is listed under the ingredients – Careful! For us it is poison.
You can bake at home anything – replacing the shortening – butter or margarine with oil. Any vegetable oil is better than margarine, butter and shortening. You get almost the same results (not so much with cookies) and definitely not frying – the high temperature of the oil breaks down the molecules and we cannot metabolize that.
I am not trying to tell you what to eat or what not. I am explaining to you how our body reacts to these types of fats. Everybody says trans fats are not good. But I don't think many people know really why. And if you think that other people are not "allergic" to these type of fats because their skin looks good – don't you worry – their body is reacting to it as well with other type of problems, that come out from the same product – gastrointestinal diseases, different types of rashes, cancer, asthma and more. So in a way we are lucky because we don't have to wait until we are very sick.
I know that it sounds terrible – really taking all the fun out of life – no cakes? No cookies? No pizza? When I decided to change the appearance of my skin, I thought that I will not be able to eat anything. But think about it. You go into the supermarket. There are thousands of products. Do you eat everything there? I knew it. No. So now it is just a matter of learning to eat new stuff. And also we can choose to eat fresh stuff, which is much better for us.
The change doesn't happen overnight. It is a long road to walk. Because when letting the body take its course, the natural cleaning process of our cells takes about 7-9 months so you don't see results right away. You can see a great improvement, but to me it took 2 years to have my face completely clear. I had faith and perseverance.
After a while, when you see improvement, you can test what other things that include fat are not good for you. – What type of dairy products trigger it, any specific fatty meats, what type of cooking make your skin worse.
You see, I am not giving you any medication. This is only a way of life and the choices you make.
I will give you an example of the foods you can eat: all the fruits, all the vegetables, all the grains, nuts in very measured quantity (they contain fat).
After you decide to make the change in the nutrition you will need more books about nutrition and you can find hundreds of them in the library. You need to look for healthy eating, nutrition and health, healthy cooking, vegetarian cooking and the like.
You will learn a lot and it will make a big change in your life.
You have nothing to loose.
For the meantime to take care I will recommend to you to replace the pillow cover each day, have a special towel for your face and replace it every day (the best is to dry your face with paper towels) and when you need a soap to wash your face use the Nitrogena for acne soap.
It is all in your hands.
If I decide to eat Chinese food – it is the worst for me. The only way it is good for me is only if I cook it at home.
The chocolate is the same thing – not good. – You could substitute it with carob powder (you can get it in health food stores) – it has a little after taste – after all it is not real chocolate, but you could use it for cakes and cookies made at home.
I wish you good luck from all my heart!
If you have any questions, or want me to help you in any way – you can e-mail me and ask me anytime, and I will try to help you in any way I can.
Ruth
