Re: The Two Articles Of Cure claims

If you would consider a "cure" to be the ending of one's cheilitis -

[which is certainly the definition of a cure as far as I am aware]

- all the medical articles that talk about finding out what substance a cheilitis patient was having an allergic reaction to, and having that patient stop his/her contact with that substance so that his/her cheilitis goes away, are ALSO 'cure claims'.

I have found out several substances that cause my cheilitis. When I avoid them entirely, my cheilitis goes away.

Am I cured? Do you consider my story to be relevant to any cheilitis sufferers? Is my story worthwhile, or is it meaningless because my specific cure is something that may not help you in particular?

A few weeks ago, someone posted here that he had cheilitis and he discovered that it went away when he stopped using mouthwash. Stopping using mouthwash is one of the most common cures of cheilitis. Is his cure story worthless, because it's so common?

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I am sure that some of you are having an allergic reaction and you just don't know it.

There are thousands of substances in the world that can cause allergic cheilitis/lip dermatitis.

Cheilitis sufferers who have eliminated 5 or 10 or 100 substances from their lives for 3 days or 30 days cannot conclude that their chronic cheilitis is NOT the result of an allergic reaction. They can only conclude that the specific substances they have eliminated are not the cause of an allergic reaction.

Cheilitis sufferers who have had allergy tests by their doctors only know their reaction to those 50 or those 200 substances that were on the allergy tests. I've read at least 2 medical journal articles that mention that the typical allergy test given by doctors does NOT include many substances that are known to cause allergic cheilitis/lip dermatitis. In one article, the researchers mentioned that they created their own allergy test panel for use with cheilitis patients.

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I understand the appeal of thinking that a cure is something that you would take in the form of a pill/medicine or apply like an ointment/topical medicine. However, sometimes a cure, *especially when it comes to skin irritation and inflamation*, is not found by adding something new to your body, but keeping something away from your body.

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-Many people who have cheilitis and then find a way to make it disappear do not ever come to forums like this.
-Many people who come to forums like this do not stay after they are cured, and do not take the time to describe what they did to make the cheilitis go away.
-Many doctors apply the first few logical remedies to their patients' cheilitis, and they are enough to make the cheilitis go away, and they don't think it is revolutionary enough to report it in the press.
-Many doctors seem to give up after they try the first few logical remedies, so patients without easily solved problems drift from one doctor to the other, and keep getting fobbed off.
-What's worse, doctors often assume that someone with persistent cheilitis after trying a modicum of treatment options is somehow lying, pretending, causing it to themselves, etc. Some textbooks back up this narrow-minded accusation by boldly stating this.
-Thus, the people without easily-solved cheilitis feel marginalized, maligned, forgotten, and increasingly hopeless. They turn to forums like this. They try all manner of normal and bizarre treatments. They might get upset and have dramatic moodswings. They might get obsessed and start to act illogically. (If they have the mental wherewithal, they might act ultra-logically and methodically experiment on themselves over a long period of time to see if anything can help their cheilitis.) They might start to think that what doesn't work for them won't work for anyone. They might start creating their own nonsensical definitions of what cheilitis is and who and who isn't really suffering from 'real' cheilitis. In short, they start to act as 'crazy' as many doctors are trained that they are.