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i need help with my lips

So ever since the summer of 2020 my lips have been flaring up about once a month. at first i would wake up with yellow crust all around my lips and on my lips and they would weep, then the skin around my lips got very itchy and red and would again sometimes be yellow and crusty and puss. i will also get these red dots on my actual lips and my lips will feel hot and tender. now when the flare ups start there will be a warm, tender part of my lip that feels tender when i touch my lips together. then the red dots come on my lips and around them. then sometimes pus comes around the lips through little dots. they always feel warm and irritated and tender at this time and usually by day two are itchy.
usually my lips will flare up at night and i will wake up with them being worse than before. i avoid licking my lips and i avoid spicy foods and touching my lips in general.
i have contacted my family doctor, a dermatologist, a walk in and am awaiting an appointment at another dermatologist. at these appointments they would say it is a rash on contact dermatitis or peri oral dermatitis and give me creams to use on and around my lips. i used two creams for over 4 weeks and they still flare up and are very bothersome. at this point i am desperate and hoping someone can help me here.
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Avatar universal
I had the same issue and dermatologist diagnosed  it dermatitis. Its not dermatitis . Its either bacterial infection (impetigo) you need antibiotics.  Or it can be fungus infection , you can use over the counter Canesten  2% ( i used the vaginal canesten and the oozing yellow went away and my lips are back to normal) use it for 1 week and stop
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hi there, i’m very glad to hear this worked for you. however, i have taken a few antibiotics for the issue and have tried a cream for yeast infections. unfortunately the pills and cream either did nothing for the issue or made it worse. i have found that only an anti inflammatory cream has ever helped them calm down.
Avatar universal
Hi Taylor! I have this same exact issue & I can’t get to the bottom of it. Do you know what yours was caused by?
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hi eleott, thankfully my lips are normal now and have been since about october 2022. i hope that your lips have subsided as well. if they have not here’s everything that i concluded: first of all, there was no aha moment unfortunately, where i knew exactly what caused them to flare up and weep. they seemed to be sensitive to sauces, heat, and stress. i also had a skin sensitivity test tell me i am allergic to lanolin which is in a lot of lip products so i avoided those (even though it didnt seem to make much of a difference). now i did and am currently still taking measures to ensure that they don’t flare up again. here’s what i do: every morning i wash my face and then i only use vaseline on my lips, that’s the only lip moisture that i know doesn’t irritate my lips, i also try to be mindful of what i use to dry my face and lips, for instance i don’t use scented detergents on my face towels in case that will irritate them. i still never use any cosmetics on my lips and if i use face sprays i will cover my lips to not let the product touch them. then my lip night routine which i have been doing for at least 8 months which has worked for me: (HERES THE MOST IMPORTANT PART) i will once again wash my face and pat my lips dry then i will take q tips (this is important to not use your hands since they may have bacteria on them or something scented that may irritate your lips) and i use the q tips to apply Eucrisa onto my actual lips. it has 2% crisaborole ointment and it’s an anti inflammatory, it’s the only lip ointment that i got some relief from when they were really bad and i haven’t stopped using it. then i apply hydrocortisone to the areas directly around my lips because although the Eucrisa helps, it can irritate my skin so the hydrocortisone ensures it won’t do that.

if you’re still struggling with this issue and want more info please reach out, i know how frustrating it is. dealt with it for 2 years and am still taking precautions to avoid it.  
Avatar universal
So strange this is happening to some of us around the same time. Wondering if it’s an allergic reaction to mask wearing or vaccine?
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I am experiencing this but do not participate in the things mentioned above however I do have to spend time in proximity to those who did which makes me wonder...
in my experience, my lips started to flare in march of 2020 which was way before i got the vaccine. it is right around the time that i started wearing masks though. the cloth masks definitely irritated my lips more, especially if they were washed with scented detergent.
Avatar universal
Have you had any trauma to the mouth or mucus membranes? This very similar situation began happening to me after I brushed my teeth with grapefruit seed extract on the recommendation of a friend.  I wish I never did that because I believe it damaged my mucosa and I have been dealing with the reoccuring problem you describe above for the past 4 months. It will heal after 1-2 weeks and then start all over again, seems to be triggered by eating certain foods. I am trying a total detox/juice fast, and using colloidal silver gel on the rashes which seems to be the only thing that helps soothe them. I think the acid of the grapefruit seed extract (which after doing research I found it's not the natural product it claims to be, it's made through a chemically intensive process) altered my gut biome drastically and now my system is all out of whack.
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the only thing i could think of as “trauma” to my mouth was a sunburn. i don’t know if this was the initial cause or just irritated them further. for me, vaseline in the day and Eucrisa (an anti inflammatory ointment) at night are the only things that saved my lips. i hope this info finds you well and hope that it’s helpful.
Avatar universal
after experiencing my lip flare ups for 2 years they have finally stopped and my lips have been normal since about october 2022. i want to leave this answer to my own post to show everything that i concluded in hopes that it will help others. first of all, there was no aha moment unfortunately, where i knew exactly what caused them to flare up and weep. they seemed to be sensitive to sauces, heat, and stress. i also had a skin sensitivity test tell me i am allergic to lanolin which is in a lot of lip products so i avoided those (even though it didnt seem to make much of a difference). now i did and am currently still taking measures to ensure that they don’t flare up again. here’s what i do: every morning i wash my face and then i only use vaseline on my lips, that’s the only lip moisture that i know doesn’t irritate my lips, i also try to be mindful of what i use to dry my face and lips, for instance i don’t use scented detergents on my face towels in case that will irritate them. i still never use any cosmetics on my lips and if i use face sprays i will cover my lips to not let the product touch them. then my lip night routine which i have been doing for at least 8 months which has worked for me: (HERES THE MOST IMPORTANT PART) i will once again wash my face and pat my lips dry then i will take q tips (this is important to not use your hands since they may have bacteria on them or something scented that may irritate your lips) and i use the q tips to apply Eucrisa onto my actual lips. it has 2% crisaborole ointment and it’s an anti inflammatory, it’s the only lip ointment that i got some relief from when they were really bad and i haven’t stopped using it. then i apply hydrocortisone to the areas directly around my lips because although the Eucrisa helps, it can irritate my skin so the hydrocortisone ensures it won’t do that.
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
Thank you for the update. I had been wondering if you had resolved it. Yes the trigger foods for my worst flareups were chinese takeout, another time it was a sushi meal that was heavy on imitation crab and seaweed salad, another time a really salty pizza, yet another time it was catered street tacos, and most recently, oddly, a couple Mexican popsicles I ate but I did not happen to see the ingredients on those. I do know that at least 3 of those things--the chinese food, the tacos and the seaweed salad all had MSG in them. So I suspect MSG is one of my triggers and food manufacturers sneak that stuff in everywhere so I have concluded that I cannot safely eat any restaurant food and I must check ingredients on anything I make at home. But at home I have been on a detox diet of mostly vegetables and various herbal teas and powders. I think my gut lining was weakened by thr exposure to the toxin of grapefruit seed extract so I've also been taking collagen/gelatin and anything I come up with in research that is purported to heal the gut lining/microbiome.  
Like you I noticed almost all products or even  natural substances I would normally use for lip moisture can be kind of irritating to this problem and surrounding skin, so my go-tos have been petroleum-based antibiotic goo (like neosporin type stuff), colloidal silver gel, and when the surrounding skin is red and inflamed, 20% zinc oxide cream (it's just petroleum jelly plus zinc)--that has to be done overnight or while resting because it's a sticky white goo on your face. But that seems to help calm the angry skin. Very hard to wash off though and kind of feels icky when you have it on. I'm still learning.
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