Re: callous theory

I think that you make some good points, but I still favor my callous hypothesis. The reason a callous develops on your hands when lifting, rather than just a cut that heals, is as a result of repeated removal of the same area of skin. That is what we are doing with our teeth and tongues to the skin on our lips, and it is the reason that the affected area is always in reach of our tongues and teeth. Think about it, do you have any abnormal skin outside the reach of your tongue?

I also know from personal experience that it is a callous, because I let the skin stay on for a month, and about 1/4 of my lips are now fully healed. It was absolutely terrible for that month, but I was out of school and could stay at home. If I didn't have to go back to school, I would have let them go for more time, and they would have healed. Of this I am certain. The part that was so hard was keeping the skin from falling off by not opening my mouth too wide, or not eating something like an apple. And this is the reason why this area of skin is so terrible to have calloused, because the skin needs to be naturally flexible around the lips, while callouses are not flexible at all. As a result, the hard skin rips off if you open your mouth too wide, and then you're back to the beginning with no progress. This is why a callous on the lips can almost never heal, because we keep ripping them off, and it never has any chance to heal.

When you had your initial trauma with the lips, if you allowed them to simply heal right then, you would not have this problem. But you picked them off and the skin tried to heal again so you thought that was ugly and picked it off and you kept doing that and are still doing that and a callous slowly formed and your lips are still calloused. I did the same thing. This is also why people who took Accutane often develop this problem. Accutane makes the lips really chapped, so people continuously lick and peel the skin until that callous forms.

I just think that the callous hypothesis explains everything. It explains why the only affected area is in reach of the tongue (a smoking gun on this problem!), why the skin looks like a corn/callous (see the pics in the paper I wrote), and why most people's conditions on here have gotten probably ever so slightly better over the years. They haven't gone away, but I bet most people on here's problems are better than 5 years ago. What other hypothesis explains all of this? One that explains everything on here is a callous of the lips.

I really disagree on one point that you make. I think that the callous hypothesis would be great if it is correct, because there are probably some good products that help the skin heal quickly. I think that burn victims use stuff that really enhances the healing of the skin, but I don't know anything about these products. I would guess that they would work just as well on the lips. Maybe that's something you could look into.