Yuck, blushing, I hate it.
It was blushing that made me go to my doctor and ask for help. It wasn't like I was blushing all the time but certain people made me blush, certain words, certain phrases, it could be quite unpredictable and was totally destroying my confidence.
As an example, if someone asked me the question "do you know John (or Fred or Mary or whatever name), if I knew the person they meant, I would blush. Now probably someone once asked me "do you know so-and-so" and it was maybe someone I had a crush on but was too scared to admit, and then whenever I heard that phrase again it made me blush.
Also, if someone said the word "virgin", even if it was the record label or the airline they were talking about, then I'd probably blush (that would be because I'm a 33 year old...virgin, due to social phobia and I'm a bit sensitive about it).
Things have improved since I have been doing CBT on the recommendation of my doctor. The psychologist said a lot of things about blushing that I didn't believe, like "people might not even notice" and "you blush because you are having a problem with anxiety" and "if you do these techniques it will improve". I didn't believe her, but I did what she said, and it did actually improve. Even when I didn't believe her, she told me that was ok, just keep telling myself these things anyway. So I kept doing CBT things and saying to myself "I doubt anyone even noticed" and "it really doesn't really matter what they think anyway" and all that.
I still blush, but much less, and I'm just much less afraid of it. But I have to keep vigilant, and I have been slipping a bit lately. I need to do more practice still. I'm not seeing the psychologist, but I still have books on the subject and I work from them.
I read about the surgery, but when I did some reading about blushing I could see that I had a problem with social anxiety that caused blushing, rather than a problem with blushing, so I decided to try and deal with the anxiety, and so far I'm happy with that approach.