Rosacea may be caused by tiny face spiders pooping in your pores. (Face Washing Warning)

[DonRedwood]

You can hit the link but I'll be happy to paraphrase first. When you hit your teen years, microscopic arachnid cousins, that I'll call face spiders, invade your face and set up shop in your eyebrows and face pores. They love to feast on teenage acne oils. MMMMMMmmmm...nothing tastes better, they figure, than a nice greasy 14 year old's nose.

They eat and they eat, getting fatter and fatter as they sit in your pores. Swelling and swelling but never pooping. Chomp chomp chomp.

Did I mention they don't have an anus? They don't. So they just fill up with poop until their little spider bodies can't take it anymore and they explode in your pores like a balloon...or a bomb. Like a poop bomb, except this one is a little spider sitting on your face.

Rosacea, they are thinking, is the body's allergic reaction to the poop. The spider poop. In your face.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22227-rosacea-may-be-caused-by-mite-faeces-in-your-pores.html

(this is actually big news for peeps who have rosacea...medications, etc. may change quite a bit. My hubby had rosacea up until about a year ago. A year ago he started taking meds for being allergic to cats and the rosacea completely disappeared. We didn't put two-and-two together until we read this article but there is a good chance his rosacea was an allergic reaction)

Now I'm going to go wash my face.

[etherealtruth]

1. Good info ...

... but ICK

[DonRedwood]

3. yeah...my hubby had rosacea but it went away when he went on meds for his cat allergies

when i met him he had quite a few pink spots and terrible cat allergies. we have two cats so he went on meds for the cats and the rosacea completely disappeared.

We hadn't put two and two together until we saw this article.

face spiders....ack.

[slackmaster]

20. That reminds me, I need to give my cat his allergy shot

[Schema Thing]

2. yeah, so? they poop on everybody's face. don't hate.

[Mosby]

4. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11424739

[HopeHoops]

5. We have a solid no-kill rule for spiders. They do far more good than they could possibly do harm.

[marybourg]

11. Which will change, I'm sure, if you ever discover a colony of huge black widow

spiders in and about your home, as I once did.

[Voice for Peace]

18. I've had tons of widows this summer inside and outside, everywhere.

They fascinate me, being critters who inspire so much dread.
But they're actually very shy, and not unfriendly. You just don't
want to surprise them; so I've learned to be careful and watch
for their webs -- they're easy to ID & dismantle, long before you
see the spider.

[Cleita]

21. Black widows are also good for the

environment as well. Also, they usually are pretty timid if you leave them alone. I keep them out of my house though with spider repellents. I dislike any and all spiders in my house. They can cavort out in my yard all they want but not in my home.

[HopeHoops]

32. We love having a house full of spiders. They eat the nasties like mosquitoes and fruit flies.

The little ones take care of the dust mites and other tiny things you can barely see. West Nile virus is a growing problem this year, so the more spiders in the house the better.

[Cleita]

35. I got tired of taking showers with them.

The repellents I use take care of the bugs they feed on as well. I actually would be crawling with ants too, if I didn't use it. Otherwise the ants can cavort out in my yard as well as long as they stay out of my house.

[HopeHoops]

36. Yeah, that's a problem. It's hard to get them into a safe spot when your hands are wet.

[HopeHoops]

33. Fortunately neither those nor brown recluse are a major problem around here. However,...

... if we found either we'd do what we do with those little black jumping spiders (small abdomens, Aahnald shoulders, and blue or green "fang" markings which aren't really fangs) and safely escort them outside. The jumping spiders are the only ones we have in our house. They're clever, too. They wait until you're deep in sleep and leave a little trail of bites along your back in JUST the spot you can't easily reach.

[Edweird]

42. I have had 2 different Black Widows - on MY HEAD - within the past month.

I was laying in bed and kind of dozed off. I felt something in my hair. I reached up and it was big and 'crunchy' and after I brushed/threw it off my head I saw what it was.

The second time I was driving and, again, felt something on my head. I cupped it and aimed it out the window. The damn thing landed on my arm!

I did not get bitten in either of those encounters - I'm surprised. I did, however, get bitten by something that left a marble sized red lump on my shin for a day or two. I felt it happen, but assumed it was just an errant shard of metal left over from drilling/cutting/grinding metal poking me.

I am not a fan of spiders.

[Arugula Latte]

6. GAAAAH!

Freakin' spiders!!!

People who say, oh, spiders do so much good -- yeah, well, when they drop down suddenly from the ceiling in front of my face and almost give me cardiac arrest, I'm not inclined to be charitable towards them. My motto is "dead spiders don't breed." I'd much rather have the bugs they're supposed to kill than the actual spiders.

[laundry_queen]

23. LOL that's me too

I always hear the 'they kill other bugs!' argument. Well, I can HANDLE other bugs, but spiders cause me to have heart palpitations every time I see them. I don't know why. My mom thinks I'm 'ridiculous' to be so afraid of spiders, but shove an earthworm or caterpillar in her face and suddenly she's outraged.

Interesting article nonetheless. As long as I can't see them, I'm okay, LOL.

[reformist2]

7. WTFLOLGrossout!

[Marrah_G]

8. I'm going to go kick my own ass for clicking on this

[OneGrassRoot]

30. LOL! n/t

[MineralMan]

9. And here's a photo of the microscopic little mites:

[flamingdem]

12. cute, is this one about to explode?

[MineralMan]

17. I don't know, actually.

[DonRedwood]

38. damn....you had to go there,didn't you?

[MineralMan]

41. All in the name of science.

The more you know...

[kestrel91316]

10. They aren't spiders. They're MITES. Specifically a Demodex mite

very closely related to the Demodex we can see in dogs and cats. Most of the time they live unnoticed, but in some patients they become a problem, we're not sure why.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demodex

Cats have two kinds:
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_demodectic_mange_in_the_cat.html

[HiPointDem]

14. rosacea is human mange?

[kestrel91316]

19. Of a sort, though these critters are normal inhabitants so

you can't call rosacea a parasitic infestation. Demodex are commensals, normal inhabitants that probably serve an important purpose that we just don't understand yet.

Rosacea is an allergy to something normal, it seems. An immune system dysfunction, like so many other human problems these days. Probably because we keep home and hearth and body too clean........

[vaberella]

13. I'm grossed out for life. Everyone's face is a horror story. n/t

[graywarrior]

15. Sweet Jesus, that's horrifying.

[hedgehog]

16. First, washing your face will not get rid of the mites.

Second, they eat until they explode on everyone's face. For some reason, whether because of the mites' diet (facial skin and oils) or because of the body's immune response, some people react poorly to this. It's not clear if people with rosacea have different kind of skin or different immune systems.

[TwilightGardener]

22. Wonder if it would make more sense to develop topical meds that

control the proliferation of mites, rather than internal meds to control the immune response?

[bettyellen]

27. Sea buckthorn oil blends work well but

Sometimes they come back and Benedryl and other allergy meds work well to control an outbreak.
I learned this on the net ten years ago- when no doctors or dermatologists had anything that helped at all.

[senseandsensibility]

24. Does anyone know why these things only attack the face?

That's always seemed weird to me.

[bhikkhu]

25. From 2007 "The Cause of Skin Condition Rosacea Discovered"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070805161110.htm

...this was published by several scientific journals, peer-reviewed, and confirmed by research since then.

I don't know whether anyone has looked at cat allergy medicine on it, but it could well work as you say for unknown reasons - without having a thing to do with face spiders.

[warrior1]

26. scary

[sylvi]

28. Alternate treatment is

pour gasoline on your face and set it alight, and when the mites crawl out to try to escape, you stab them with an icepick.

[Poll_Blind]

29. My god that's hot.

Wait, my bad. That's something out of Warhammer 40,000.

PB

[LeftyMom]

40. Please don't say that, GW will sue us all for our copyright violating exploding face monsters.

But just in case, what's the point value for the thing, how many come on a sprue and when are they adding it to the 'nid codex?

[pkz]

31. I had 6 laser treatments to get rid of some of my rosacea

wonder if those suckers are dead now?

[snooper2]

34. I thought drunks get rosacea? Spiders like alcohol?

and of course there is a youtube video "proof some people DO have too much time on their hands LOL"


drunk spider

Uploaded by Saliedro on Jan 3, 2010

some spiders just cant handle beer...

we caught this spider, put it in an ice cream box, added a bit of beer, waited a few minutes and then released it on the table

[JVS]

37. Shit faced!

[Matariki]

39. Don Redwood, you got a way with words

[AnnieBW]

43. I have rosacea

It's caused by mite poop? Ewwww!!!

I have to go scrub my face now.