you shouldn't be so worried about it. Most likely, this is a psychological disorder. You feel nervous in some situations, which leads to the body reacting differently (in your case, blushing). After you have become aware of this blushing, you get nervous about getting nervous.

For example, say you are at the mall and you bump into a group of people that you know. Because you are afraid of blushing, the first thing your body is going to do is become nervous. You say to yourself, "Oh no, I'm going to start blushing". Or something like that. Then of course, because your nervous about getting nervous, you begin to blush.

That is probably confusing, but for an answer...try meditating or some soothing exercises. Don't try medication right away, I'm sure you can fix this yourself. You just have to learn to stay calm in certain situations, and not worry. Eventually it will go away if you learn to not stress over it.

I understand what you are going through, I does get frusterating when you have people say just take deep breaths or get more confidence in yourself and you wont blush so much. Overactive blushing is an uncontrollable response. If it were so simple as taking a few breaths to stop I am sure you would have done that already and you wouldn't have a problem.
There is a website called facialblush.com they speak a little bit about what Chinese medicine and accupunture can do to reduce the activity of the sympathetic nervous system and in a way reverse what your body has been telling yourself to do which is panic and go red. If you find a chinese medicine who does accupunture and chinese medicine (herbs). Who is registered and knows what they are talking about (very important) with in 6 or more treatments they can reverse the messages of what your body it telling itself to do.
So do not give up.

I completely understand what you're going through. I am not a shy person; however, lately more than ever I have noticed an increase in not only EXTREME facial blushing but on my neck, chest and arms. It is so bad, that I have been becoming nervious about even standing in line because my blushing is so sudden, I get hot so fast, and then panic and a second later my face, chest and neck even arms feels hot and tingly and people start staring at me. I keep trying to keep myself calm and prevent it from happening, but more than ever lately I cannot control it. I have been married for almost a year to my high school sweetheart and best friend, and I am starting to think that it may be progressing into some kind of social anxiety, and I dont want him to know about it because it sounds so stupid and I dont know anyone who has it. I am very close to seeing a psychiatrist about it, because I do not know how much longer I can keep it from him. Lately, I have been getting a lot of attention from people I do not know because I am 9 months people and pepople are being nice and asking questions about the pregnancy and I feel bad, because I worry about the embarressing blushing episodes it sucks so bad! I just had to vent this out...

I am 21 years old and have suffered from severe facial blushing since I was 7 years old. In grade school I was called a "tomato" and was known as "the girl with the red cheeks." When I was 14 I saw a 20/20 special about a man who had a form of hyperhidrosis and had ECT surgery. So, I wanted the surgery because my facial blushing was impacting my life and I began to avoid social situations. I first when to my regular doctor who told me wanting to get surgery is extreme and sent me to a psychologist, then to a psyciatrist and I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder. I have been on six different anti-anxiety pills over the span of 6 years and right now my blushing is out of control again. They try to blame it on anxiety disorder but I really think it is something that cannot be controlled with oral medication only. I am going to look more into ETC surgery and tell my therapist what I think.

But I know how it is =(

(and I wrote a book about my journey through all these anti anxiety medications and my childhood as a tomato-- look for it sometime soon hopefully)

I hear where you're coming from as I experience this everyday. I am 26 years old and not sure when I started feeling like this, but I've always been a shy person. I totally agree with bublitily. You begin to turn red as soon as you constantly think about the situation. For instance, when I go to the supermarket and sometimes when it takes me a while to get the items out from the cart and put it up on the counter, I think about holding others up and just them looking at me makes me nervous. So by the time it comes to paying, I turn really RED and feel my ears burning up. You're not the only one...trust me. I know how uncomfortable this can be. And then you get worried or embarrassed because other people see you turning red so you start concentrating on that the whole time. Then you start blaming yourself or putting yourself down because you set high standards for yourself before going to the supermarket. It could have been that you might have told yourself, "Okay, I'm going to be relaxed and I won't turn red when I go to the supermarket this time". Then when you do the opposite, it makes you feel really disappointed in yourself. I think it can also be Social Anxiety Disorder or Social Phobia in that you get overwhelmed in certain social situations and focus your consciousness on yourself. You feel that every little behavior you engage in that others are watching.

Goodness Selo4747 that post sounded like I wrote it myself. This same thing happens to me all the time. Most of the time I avoid using the Eftpos machine at the supermarket because I don't want to turn red while people wait for me. Sometimes I go into the supermarket with only my credit card to train myself that it isn't that bad to hold people up at the checkout but in nearly all cases I turn red. I turn red when people talk to me but sometimes it doesn't happen until midway through the conversation and then the other person gets uncomfortable and we just have to wait until the redness goes away. Sometimes I get so upset by turning red that it makes me depressed however I have lived with it for so long I just tell myself that things could be worse. I go red at work all the time even in front of my boss for no reason and sometimes I think when I blush in front of males they think it's because I like them but it isn't true because I go red in front of just about anyone! Anyway I am glad to read that other people go through this and it's not just me! It definitely has something to do with what we think others think about us. I wouldn't call myself shy but sometimes I refrain from participating in group discussions because I don't want to blush and look silly.

I suffer from the same instant blushing and social anxiety and by now at 26 I feel like it's greatly holding me back from opportunities in life. The thing that annoys me the most about it is that you can't fake confidence (for example at a job interview or in conversation) as how nervous or embarrassed you're truly feeling shows so obviously for all to see. I'm hoping to find some possible solutions for this problem too!

The doctor put me on 10 mg Lexapro daily for social anxiety and it has helped me enormously! I don't feel the anxiety as much anymore and I rarely get a red face these days. I was embarrased to speak to my doctor about it but once I started I felt a huge relief when she totally understood my issue! I even typed out my symptoms and handed it to her because I was not sure if I was able to tell her about it and forget half of the things I wanted to say hehe.

Please don't be embarrased to speak to your doctor about this! or do like I did and type it out instead. There is help for this!

I am 26 years old and I have suffered from facial blushing my whole life. I get so mad when people say that it's caused by a lack of self confidence or from being shy. They couldn't be more wrong. I would blush when I ran into someone at the grocery store or the mall. I would blush if I raised my hand in class. Lets not even talk about giving a speech or interviews! I would blush if a manager came up to talk to me at work. I would blush if I spoke in front of more than 3 people. I felt like blushing got in the way of living a normal life. And I always blamed myself, thinking that it was my fault for some reason. Well when I was 22 I typed in "facial blushing" online and found out that I was not alone. I actually burst into tears crying because I thought I was the only person with this. And then I got mad thinking about all of the times that I was made fun of. I ended up having the surgery and my facial blushing went away for about a year. It did come back, but not as bad. But I feel like having a break from blushing for a year helped me gain confidence and get used to not blushing. So now I blush, but not as severly, and when I do, I don't worry about it as much. I recently went back to school and I still have a hard time raising my hand in class. I think I was traumatized from previous experiences of blushing. I am actually thinking about having the surgery reversed because of the side effects.... excessive sweating. But I do not regret having the surgery because facial blushing was really effecting my life. People who say that blushing is caused by a lack of self confidence are wrong. Facial blushing is caused by an overreaction of the sympathetic nervous system. And facial blushing causes people to lose their self-esteem.