Erythrophobia: Why Does Fear Occur and How to Deal with It?

Everyone can blush - from awkwardness, shame, embarrassment or indignation. But there are people who can blush just like that, suddenly their face "flashes", which leads others to bewilderment. This is a fairly common disorder called erythrophobia.

Erythrophobia is called pathological fear caused by the possible prospect of blushing in public, in public. Oddly enough, but this is exactly what happens in the end. The fear of facial hyperemia has other names, it is called blushing syndrome or idiopathic erythema. Fear cannot be called irrational, like most phobias, because erythrophobes have reason to be afraid of facial redness - they have such a predisposition.

There are people in whom the excitability of the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system is increased, and because of this, blood flow often occurs to the skin of the face, arms, and neck. But there is no fear for the time being, and only when a person (usually a teenager) begins to understand that his redness raises questions from others, he begins to fear repeated episodes, however, in no way can affect the likelihood of their occurrence.

Alone, when no one sees the patient, attacks of fear usually do not occur. One way or another, fear is closely related to the social environment, the public, with the unwillingness to become a laughing stock or face uncomfortable questions from other people.

Facial redness (flushing) can be uniform or uneven (spots).

Erythrophobia can significantly affect a person's life - communication is difficult, the patient can hardly establish contacts, and sometimes even decides to isolate himself from others. Erythrophobes cannot engage in public activities, speak in front of an audience, or teach. Many professions that are close to them in spirit are desirable, become inaccessible - fear dictates its conditions.

One of the most famous erythrophobes of our time is the Hollywood actress, winner of several Oscars, including for the role of Bridget Jones, Renee Zellweger. The actress often visits a psychotherapist, and her hyperemia, often asymmetrical, has already become a part of her image. She learned to live quite peacefully with her. But this example is rather an exception. Most people with blushing syndrome do not manage to come to terms with their peculiarity, and yet pathological fear arises.

Erythrophobia is one of the phobic disorders of the psyche, officially recognized by medicine and included in the International Classification of Diseases.

The human face is supplied with blood more intensively than most other parts of the body. And this was conceived by nature for a reason. The face has an impressive amount of small facial muscles, which are fixed at one end directly in the layers of the skin. The facial muscles are almost constantly in motion, and therefore they need more blood to function properly. The network of facial blood vessels is highly developed, despite the fact that the vessels themselves are quite small.

So that the skin on the face is not red or purple all the time, due to this physiological feature of this part of the body, there is a small layer of interstitial fluid in the subcutaneous fatty tissue, which reduces the color intensity if the vessels expand. But she cannot completely disguise the blood flow, and therefore it is common for a person to blush when blood rushes to the face: during physical exertion, running, fast walking, during sexual discharge, during heat, cold, as well as with strong emotions, for example, when it is shameful, when a person is very embarrassed, very worried, etc. This mechanism is characteristic of all people, without exception.

Erythrophobes have a slightly different organization of the nervous system. The sympathetic department is excited more and more quickly, and it is not at all necessary for a person to find himself in the circumstances listed above. Reddening the face with erythrophobia can just happen when a person is completely calm.

As soon as a teenager begins to realize that he is “not like that”, that he has such a feature, negative expectations intensify - he is in almost constant tension, because he knows that treacherous redness can spread over his face at the most inopportune moment. There is a fear of this phenomenon, which is accompanied by an adrenaline rush. Adrenaline, in turn, even more excites the nervous system, and what the erythrophobe was so afraid of is actually happening. Over time, episodes of hyperemia become more frequent, and fear also grows.

Phobia manifests itself quite straightforwardly - frequent reddening of the skin of the face. Some patients with blushing syndrome claim that all the skin is reddened to the same extent, others note the so-called geographic hyperemia - redness occurs in large and medium spots, reminiscent of the geographical outlines of continents. For some, hyperemia is limited only to the face, but there are also those whose neck and décolleté are involved in the process. Often erythrophobes claim that in an attack they experience a clear sensation of a rush of heat to the face and this is quite justified - the blood flow can really cause a feeling of warmth.

Erythrophobes very quickly lose confidence in their abilities and adequate self-esteem. They turn into confused, intimidated individuals, fearful and anxious. They have to, against their desires and dreams, choose such professions in which they do not have to deal with people. It is difficult for them to make love and friendships.

The more everyday life suffers, the more its quality decreases, the more withdrawn and anxious people become, susceptible to blushing syndrome. Often the consequences arising from it are attached to the original problem: the patient becomes a convinced social phobia, begins to suffer from depression, each subsequent of which becomes more protracted and severe than the previous one.

It is impossible to cope with blushing syndrome at home. A person definitely needs professional help. To get it, you can contact a psychotherapist or psychiatrist. To begin with, you will need to be examined by a gynecologist (if we are talking about a woman) in order to exclude early menopause and premenopausal changes, the opinions of a dermatologist, endocrinologist and therapist may also be required.

To date, surgical treatment is recognized as the most promising method of therapy. The operation is called sympathectomy. Its effectiveness is estimated at 94-97%. This is how many patients, after the intervention, completely get rid of their problem.

But it should be noted that such a high efficiency is observed only in those whose redness covers the entire area of ​​the face. If the face turns red with spots, then the effectiveness of the operation does not exceed 50%.

The operation is not performed for everyone. They will not do it for diseases of the respiratory system and heart failure. The task of the surgeons is to get to the sympathetic trunk through two miniature incisions under the armpits. To do this, a small video camera is inserted into them and in this endoscopic way doctors manage to get an image on the screen. The sympathetic trunk is partially blocked or destroyed.

After intervention in the work of the nervous system during and after surgery, certain side effects may occur: sweating increases in the area of ​​the body, legs, when eating spicy food, sweating also occurs, palms become drier, and the heart rate decreases slightly. However, most often these phenomena are not so significant and unpleasant for the erythrophobe than the problem that brought him to the operating table.

Psychotherapy for erythrophobia must be combined with patient education relaxation techniques, deep relaxation... The task of the therapist is to make the person understand that he can remain calm, and this will certainly give a positive result. The patient is offered new attitudes that refute the shamefulness or depravity of his features, in other words, they are taught to live with this feature. The psychotherapist not only talks about how to treat the problem correctly, but also teaches erythrophobe techniques of auto-training, breathing exercises - this is what will help, if necessary, quickly pull yourself together and prevent anxiety.

Classes in groups have proven themselves very well, but in parallel with this, individual work with a specialist is shown. Hypnotherapy is often used, as well as methods of gradual immersion in stressful situations, allowing the patient, under the guidance of a psychotherapist, to re-experience situations in which, until recently, he experienced shame, nightmare and horror.

Among the medicines there is no universal cure for this phobia, there is no magic pill or injections that would help solve the problem. However, often the psychotherapist considers it necessary to accompany the study with medicines. Antidepressants are used to help maintain a positive mood, as well as drugs from the beta-blocker group, which slightly lower the heart rate. This has an amazing effect - the connection between stress, heartbeat and redness of the skin of the face and neck is interrupted.

You need to understand that antidepressants, and even more so beta-blockers have a large list of solid side effects, they are generally contraindicated for many, and therefore they try to resort to drug therapy for erythrophobia only in the most extreme cases, when psychotherapy alone cannot cope with the task, but surgical treatment was deemed inappropriate.