Still willing to bet it's fungal, cottonmouth.

I bet it could be--the initial irritation may have been from fungus. Fungus is sneaky like that. It's never a blaring infection, just a minor irritation and takes a while to develop. It's probably hid out under the lip picking habit---driving it most likely, making you pick the top layer of skin off so it could get more air.

Modern medicine rarely if ever recognizes it. Unless it appears like athlete's foot or something. I've had other skin fungus that wasn't as easy to treat as the lip stuff, but I've finally managed to whack those too. Those took an ointment with silver, more heavy duty than a gel, because after menopause, it went under the skin. *ack* It's probably how I recognized the lip stuff.