Re: Random thing I thought about

I think in many cases (lipshitz said he doesn't have an inflammation in his lips; did he ever get a biopsy?) the root cause (maybe HPV) causes the lip to be chronically inflammed on the inside. This causes some kind of keratosis (hyperkeratosis), an excessive hornification of the skin, which never ends until the underlying inflammation or other cause is killed/stopped.

Once the scabs come off, the skin underneath is still very thin and therefore sensitive (not sure my it's often swollen, but probably just because of the inflammation in the lip which causes swelling, and that part of the lip having very thin skin shows the swelling even more). The hyperkeratosis is still in progress (never ending), so after a day or so it seems like the skin is normal, but after another day or so it gets harder and harder and thicker etc..

It was a short night last night, so I'm not sure if anything I just wrote makes any sense.. but I guess that's how it works often times.