Dry Lips: Causes and Remedies

Symptoms

Possible symptoms include chapped, crusted, rough, painful and dry lips, tightness, burning, redness, scaling and swelling. The adjacent skin is often eczematously affected, for example in lip lick eczema. The symptoms are aggravated by the feeling of having to constantly wet the lips with the tongue.

Causes

Causes include:

  • Cold, windy weather (fall, winter) with low humidity.
  • Repeated licking of the lips
  • Atopic dermatitis
  • Lip Chewing
  • Dehydration
  • Exposure to sunlight
  • Mouth breathing
  • Fever
  • Dry mouth, Sjörgen syndrome
  • Drugs, especially retinoids such as isotretinoin, tretinoin and alitretinoin.

Treatment

For treatment, greasy lipsticks or lip creams and light topical glucocorticoids such as hydrocortisone in a greasy base are recommended. For chapped lips, possibly with an additional disinfectant.