Hi folks,

After my derm has brought up hygiene as a possible factor preventing healing, I thought I'd ask for people to comment on what they do. I know not everyone has done a lip culture to determine if they have bacteria or yeast present, but I highly recommend it . . . knowing and eliminating infection is half the battle, figuring out the reason for underlying chronic inflammation may be the other half. In my case I have had MRSA staph come and go and currently have "normal" staph in overgrowth and yeast as well, but not the Candida form.

So do people shave? I didn't for the longest time because my beard was a nice barrier for shower water, but I was clean-shaven on the most recent time I showed improvement (November), and my derm says beards harbor bacteria. Shaving sucks but may be a necessary evil for now.

Do people bite their nails? Microbes live in dirty nails, apparently. I bit the shit out of my nails when I first developed the condition (I was also compulsively biting the skin off my lips in case you don't know), was even biting my toenails if you can believe.

Do people wash their lips? I have avoided this for forever, especially after everyone tried Triclosan products, and briefly did it last spring but stopped after they seemed to be more inflamed. Now I'm giving a natural anti-bacterial soap based on thyme oil a shot.

Do people shower daily? I usually don't to save water. But now I think washing our faces daily should be a minimum at least.

Have people been going to the dentist? Flossing? The mouth contains all sorts of microbes, especially staph. If your gums bleed when flossing it's a sign of infection and possibly bacteria is being transferred from teeth to lips. Flossing once a day and getting a general cleaning twice a year is recommended unless you take really good care of your teeth. Dentists can be rough on the lips but we can establish boundaries with them, so yet another necessary evil.

Have people been sterilizing the tool they use to trim dead skin off their lips? Rinsing isn't enough . . . boiling or soaking in rubbing alcohol for 30 seconds should do the trick for most microbes, but of course wait for the tool to cool off and the alcohol to evaporate so as not to traumatize the lips more.

And finally, have people been hitting the pipe? It's another source of possible reinfection. I assume most of us have kicked this habit if we ever had it, and realized we can always take our medicine through edibles or tinctures.

Even if I don't get a response, I hope everyone will at least give this some thought and ramp up their personal hygiene.

Peace,
C.S.