u/pollypetunia

The sensation of sunscreen on my face (and to a lesser extent my body) makes me want to claw my skin off. I'm aware of it every second it is on my face, and the only thing I want to do is wash it off.

I hate that it's sticky, it never seems to absorb into my skin, it feels slimy and greasy and I swear it makes me sweat more so I always feel overheated. I can't stand it and I know I don't wear it as often as I should as a result. In the winter it's not as bad because of our low UV but obviously we're in the middle of summer and sunscreen is a must.

I also have rosacea and generally sensitive skin, which means that a lot of things tend to break me out.

My general skincare is Korean/Japanese (Curel moisture wash, BOJ cleansing balm, Mary and May Idebenone Serumand Blackberry serum and either the Soon Jung 2x barrier cream or the M&M blackberry cream) but I generally just grab a sunscreen from Boots or the supermarket because money is tight and the AB ones are so expensive. At the moment I'm using a 50spf 'invisible face fluid' from Asda but I'd love some suggestions for sunscreens I can actually stand to have on my skin!

I've had rosacea for decades. I don't flush or blush easily, the redness is persistent and comes with a lot of thread veins and thickening of the skin on the nose that has got worse over the years. I finally got around to seeing my GP again after some abortive attempts to treat it in my 20s (months and months of lymacyline, tetracycline to no effect, topical stuff like clyndamicin, metrogel). She gave me ivermectin/soolantra and put me on the list for a dermatologist referral.

Three months later I got the referral and it was not great. The soolantra is working well and a lot of the redness has calmed down. The dermatologist didn't even look at my skin, he was writing the prescription for doxycyline as I walked in the room. He also recommended salicylic acid products to cut down the oil in my skin, but I don't HAVE oily or greasy skin. I'm a perimenopausel person, I actually have the opposite, my skin is dry and needs a lot of babying and the last thing I need is to wash with a salicylic acid wash twice a day- the destroyed my skin when I WAS a greasy teenager!

I'm really wary of taking 3 months of 100mg doxycycline, because antibiotics often mess up my stomach and give me thrush. It's something I'll tough out for say a week for an ear infection, but 3 months for something that is largely cosmetic seems a bargain I don't want, especially as the thing that is really bothering me (the thickening of the skin and the thread veins) isn't really treated with that. But I'm concerned if I don't take them I'll be put down as non-compliant and removed from the list

Anyone had any luck with getting other rosacea treatments (dermbrading, IPL etc) without first doing the antibiotics?

Does anyone know of any foodbanks (ideally near Solihull) that accept donations of cat food? My cat's a fusspot and so I have multiple boxes of pouches that he's turned his nose up at! The issue is that while the remaining pouches are sealed, the box obviously is open so I'm unsure how that affect things. It just seems a shame to throw them away when things are tough for so many people.