... so my derm was incredibly busy today and i didn't get all the info i wanted but i got some nice tidbits...

my lips have been doing great since the brown lipliner looking scab incident... that area healed and the rest of my lips affected areas are building up much slower, and the affected area is becoming smaller... looks like normal lips when not wet... i changed a few things up after getting diagnosed with a heavy count of mixed bacteria.... vaporizer in room, vaseline to protect lips in shower, and rinsing with saline a dew times a day... anyway, mixed bacteria is pretty meaningless according to him... everyone has it... it's probably from my saliva and does not require Antibiotics ...


first of all healing, i explained your situation to him... he does not think you need the steroid... the peeling is actually secondary to the chronic inflammation, and if the peeling has stopped that means your inflammation is also subsiding on its own... maybe without you realizing it... my derm is even telling me to ease up on the steroid now and only apply it if my lips flare up because my lips are in a much better state... he feels that steroids are never necessary to make the body to heal, they can just speed things along in the case of inflammatory conditions... he thinks desonide would probably be safe for you and could take the inflammation down a little faster, but does not feel it is worth the attempt as your inflammation is subsiding anyway and steroids can actually rarely make things worse and start the peeling process again if it somehow does not agree with you.

...then i asked him why steroids can't completely eradicate ec if it was just to do with inflammation... he said it's more complicated than that... there are basically three main factors at play... usually in this order for the pickers and biters 1. the protective layer of skin is somehow disrupted 2. it causes inflammation 3. as a response the lips are continually trying to protect themselves piling up layer after layer of crud... the three bounce off eachother in a vicious, seemingly never ending cycle... you can temporarily remove most of the inflammation with powerful or systematic steroids, but it's not quite that simple because the skin cells have memory... and they have already been set in a motion to continually pile up crud... some highly irritating factor has made everything go crazy and malfunction in his opinion, and the best way to deal with it is to provide a moist, soothing environment for the lips to find there own way to bounce back... you cant really force it... that's why he only prescribes vaseline and a mild steroid like desonide to calm irritation, and ease the lips back... as opposed to full on bringing inflammation to a halt... that's not the way the body repairs itself.

lomgterm, you had asked what diseases cause this... i know this info is going to be completely useless to you but at this point my derm was looking at his watch and giving me strong vibes that he needed to be with his next patient... i asked him the question, and his first reponse was "any disease that can cause inflammation"... i asked him again if he could be specific and he said "usually abdominal or autoimmune disorders."... i felt awkward asking him a third time and called it day...

anyway... hope to bring you guys more info in the future :p