A mother who experienced severe rosacea making her face “constantly red” and who could not be prescribed any treatment by her GP as she was pregnant at the time, making her cry in her car, has found a “miracle cure” – a cream made from caper extract.
Lesley Forward, 36, a business coordinator who lives in County Down, Northern Ireland with her partner Michael, 35, an aeronautical engineer, and their two children, Lea, six months, and, Kaley, age 13, developed rosacea in the summer of 2019, but it was not until she was pregnant for the second time, in March 2022, that it got worse.
Lesley had a rash on both cheeks, as well as her nose, which was “really, really red and really bumpy” and at-home treatments did not make it any better, making her feel “so rubbish about (herself)”.
Lesley, who is a fitness instructor in her spare time, was conscious that her “red spotty face” made her look bad in front of her gym clients, and her lack of confidence also caused her to get “really annoyed” at her partner, and she always felt like he was looking at her skin.
In May 2022, she was diagnosed with rosacea but her GP was unable to prescribe her with anything as she was pregnant, which made her burst into tears in the doctor’s surgery’s car park.
But, when Lesley got home, she ordered a new cream by a brand she spotted online called Kalme, and within four days, the “miracle” treatment cleared up her rosacea, making her “finally feel like (herself) again.”
In the summer of 2019, Lesley, who has always had clear skin besides occasional hormonal acne as a teenager, noticed a red rash appearing on one of her cheeks.
Lesley told PA Real Life: “I initially thought it was due to a viral infection – after a couple of weeks it didn’t clear up, so I started to look at my diet to see if it was something I was eating.
“I changed different elements of my diet but it didn’t make any difference.
“I’ve never been someone who spent a lot of time and money on beauty care regimes and at the time my skincare routine was just soap and water so I started to use cleansers and moisturisers.
“Again, it didn’t help, in fact, some of the cleansers actually made my skin worse.”
Lesley’s rash eventually cleared up over time, but when she fell pregnant with her youngest daughter, in March 2022, it came back worse than ever.
She said: “The rash was on both cheeks – they were really, really red and really bumpy, and it was all over my nose too – especially at the end of my nose, it was so bad, I’ve never really seen anything like it.
“I had sickness and tiredness and felt so rubbish about myself because of the pregnancy, so it was horrible to have bad skin on top of that.
“Being pregnant made me feel absolutely awful, I was gaining weight and having rosacea on top of this, put a downer on my pregnancy for sure – if anyone said I was glowing, like they usually do to pregnant women, I wouldn’t believe them.
“I started wearing a bit of makeup to cover it up, but it didn’t do anything.”
In her spare time, Lesley is a personal trainer and instructs fitness classes in front of around 20 people.
She said: “The focus is very much on the instructor – as my rosacea got worse I found myself increasingly feeling insecure when instructing fitness classes.
“Clients look up to you and have high expectations, so when you have a red spotty face it feels like you are not looking like the healthy person you should be for your clients.”
Lindsay soldiered on with her skin and continued trying different at-home treatments, but her face was becoming even more inflamed.
She said: “By this time my skin was the worst it had ever been – it was constantly red on both cheeks and had spread to my nose and I had bumps all over my cheeks and little pustules.
“My skin felt sore and tight and itchy and was generally very uncomfortable.”
Lindsey began to feel extremely self-conscious, she explained: “I just didn’t like people looking at my face.
“Even when my partner was talking to me I’d ask him why he was looking at me and get really annoyed at him because I thought he was looking at my skin.
“I just felt so so horrible about myself.”
So, in May 2022, Lindsey visited her GP, who immediately diagnosed her with rosacea.
She said: “The diagnosis was bad enough, but then the hammer blow came.
“I was told that due to being pregnant they couldn’t prescribe me anything for my rosacea – I was told I would have to wait until after I had the baby to get any treatment.
“But, even then, I couldn’t take anything when breastfeeding.
“I was completely deflated and I was devastated – I actually sat in the car and cried.
“I would wake up in the mornings and just stare at my face and think ‘Why is this happening to me?’”
After Lesley was told by the doctors that there was nothing they could do, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
She said: “During my research on pregnancy and rosacea I came across an article about a model who had rosacea that flared up really badly when she became pregnant.
“It was a similar experience to what I was going through and she had found a cream containing capers called Kalme which had really helped calm down and clear her skin and was safe to use while she was pregnant.”
Lesley ordered some right away and started using the cream the day it arrived, and to her amazement, within four days her skin began to clear up.
She said: “The redness had subsided slightly and the spots weren’t nearly as bad. After two weeks my skin was almost clear – it was amazing.
“I’ve now been using the caper cream for just over a year and I continue to be delighted by the results.”
Lesley would say to others who have rosacea: “I’d recommend anyone suffering from this awful skin condition to try this, because despite what the doctors say there really are things that can help you.
“I really can’t believe how much my skin has improved, it’s like a miracle cure – I finally felt like me again.”
