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red swollen lips, now peeling

Hello. For the past 6 months since my daughter was 6 months old, My lips have started swelling and turning red and burning/itching sometime at night, so that I wake up looking like a clown. after 2-3 days of this, they begin to peel completely away, even well below my lower lip onto my facial skin. The skin underneath is very red, and raw, and I cannot seem to keep chapstick on my lips, as they literally seem to SOAK it up within 5 minutes. I am at my wits end with this, I work in a Gym, and I have to face people all day long, not to mention my husband is afraid to kiss me during thes episode, for fear of catching whatver Ive got! I now take benedryl every night to try to stop the outbreaks, but it does nothing to help.

Thank you
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Avatar universal
Hey there everyone, I want to tell you about this situation that happened to my husband, and we are pretty sure we have it completely figured out. About 2 years ago he started to develop this issue with his lips, same as everyone here: swollen, peeling, red and very painful. It began after he was on a rigorous workout regimen and was consuming high amounts of protein powder shakes and bars. That is the only thing we could come up with about his diet that had changed. He is actually a doctor and we were still completely clueless as to what this could be. He had a full workup of allergies done and nothing specific came up. But meanwhile he was suffering terribly with this and the flare ups were random. He started being mindful of what he ate, but still the flare ups didn't point to any one food, lip product, etc. I had been online many times searching for an answer and found nothing. Then about 6 months later, coincidentally I started learning about GMO's and the toxins in our food supply (I had a baby at the time) and so decided to switch my family to an organic diet at home. We pretty much started buying all organic foods, and as for fresh produce, organic except for the "clean 15". We did not even think this would have anything to do with his lip allergy, but sure enough his lip symptoms went away. Since then he has been symptomless except for a few random times when it happens just a little, but only reddening of his lips, not the swelling and peeling. And when it does happen, he can usually tell exactly what it was that he ate out which probably had a lot of chemical additives/toxins, sometimes Chinese food from a restaurant, or if he eats candy from mainstream non organic companies, and the worst he had lately was when we went on the Disney cruise for a week. He can literally feel them start to tingle right after eating the "bad" food. But when he mostly sticks to organic food at home and tries to eat organic out if he can, his lips are completely healed and normal. Later I found out that the mouth is like a red flag for what is going on in the gut, so the fact that his lips were reacting was probably a sign that he was on his way to getting colitis or Chrones disease, or something like that. We are so happy we figured it out and caught it in time. Just wanted to share our experience with this! Good luck to you!
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Avatar universal
I have a condition where my lips are swollen and peeling it looks digusting. i put vaseline on it drys it up some areas are raw what should i do
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Avatar universal
I had the exact same thing. I looked in the mirror one day while brushing my teeth (after an allergist suspected toothpaste) and noticed the area affected was covered in toothpaste.
I switched toothpastes (was using Aim, now all natural JASON) and it went away within a day. After MONTHS of trying everything, that s all it took!

I would see an allergist and ask for a PATCH test (not a scratch test) so you can see what ingredient may bother you. They can give you a list of everything that contains it.
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Avatar universal
I had this for months and it was driving me crazy.  I went to the dermatologist and she said it was kicked off by an allergy to my high blood pressure medicine, Cozaar.  I was taken off Cozaar, but my lips didn't recover.  It took 7 days of pregnisone to knock it out.  Even after that, the damage to the skin on my upper lip is still healing, 2 months later.  Before the pregnisone, she had me on an aquaphon ointment and an 2 1/2 HC ointment, no gum, no mints, no mouthwash, to flavored toothpaste, no gum, no mints, no salad dressing, to tomato, garlic, onion, citrus, peanut butter, potato, or berries.  No lipstick, no chips.  It didn't work; it helped, but didn't stop the peeling, which was driving me crazy.  I think she called the condition cheelitis,

Janet
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