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Medical Video: Causes of Dry Skin Around the Nose and Great Ways to Fix It
Dry and cracked lips are a common condition. People of all ages and sex can experience chapped lips, especially if you have dry skin types.
Dry lips can be caused by a variety of factors and are easily treated with simple treatments. However, there are some people who may suffer from dry and cracked lips due to Cheilitis infection. Cheilitis is characterized by cracked skin around the corners of the lips.
Why can lips dry?
Lips have a very thin and transparent "skin" layer, called the stratum corneum. The reddish color of the lips comes from the concentration and proximity of the skin layer to the surface of the blood vessels below, which allows the color to be clearly seen.
The difference with facial skin, lips do not have oil glands. For this reason, lips are easier to dry and crack. Lack of moisture is the most common cause of dry and cracked lips, both in terms of weather and lack of self-care.
Refer from Healthline.com, signs and symptoms of chapped lips include: dry, flaking, scaly, injured, cracked, and bleeding.
6 habits that make lips dry
1. Dehydration
Dehydration disrupts the natural mineral balance in the body, causing damage not only to the organ systems in the body, but also to negatively affect your skin.
Dehydration causes symptoms such as dizziness, constipation, decreased urine production, dry mouth and lips, and headaches. In cases of severe dehydration, dehydration can cause low blood pressure, fever, runny breathing, or palpitations.
To avoid dehydration, always remember to drink 8-12 glasses of water every day. If you are an athlete or diabetic, drink more fluids.
2. Licking the lips
One habit that you tend to do, continuously and unconsciously, when your lips feel dry is licking your lips. Even though licking your lips can provide temporary moisture, but saliva that moves from your mouth to your lips will eat away the thin layer of skin on the lips and strip away its natural moisture.
Saliva contains enzymes that function to help you digest food, not as a provider of additional moisture to your lips. Saliva will quickly release after being exposed to outside air, leaving the lips dry again and peeling off. This is what causes licking the lips to become a recurring habit.
The solution, as much as possible stop the habit of licking your lips when you feel your lips begin to dry out. You can apply lipbalm with a strange taste or contain drugs to help you begin to reduce this bad habit. Alternatively, you can apply aloe gel on your lips. Aloe vera contains healing properties that will improve the structure of dry lips, the bitter taste will keep you from licking your lips.
3. Biting the lips
The habit of biting the lips can be caused by nervousness and anxiety, focusing on certain things, or just to fight boredom.
Just like licking your lips, lip biting can also threaten the health of your lips. When you bite your lips, your teeth will irritate your lips; make the layer torn and cracked, even to bleed.
3. Drink too much alcohol
Alcohol malnutrition is one of the causes of dry and cracked lips. Excessive alcohol consumption will interfere with the process of absorption of vitamins in the body, resulting in you not being able to fulfill enough vitamin intake.
Deficiencies of vitamins B2 and B6 can cause dry and cracked lips.
Alcohol can also cause dehydration. To work around this, drink one or two glasses of water when you wake up early after you drink alcohol at night, and always keep your fluid intake throughout the day.
4. Salty or spicy food
If you are among those who easily experience dry and cracked lips, you should begin to reduce consumption of salty foods. The salt contained in your favorite salty food can irritate the skin layer of the lips and cause inflammation. Likewise with spicy food.
The solution, multiply fruits and vegetables that can restore the body's pH balance.
5. Excessive sun exposure
Sun exposure is the main cause of dry and cracked lips, even when the weather is cloudy and cloudy.
Apply lipbalm containing a minimum of SPF15 each time you will move outdoors. Choose lipbalm containing titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, or avobenzone (butylmethoxydibenzoylmethane) as UVA protective properties.
The content of lipbalm itself helps moisturize the lips, while the protective properties of the sun contained in it will minimize the effect of drying the lips.
6. Consumption of medicines
Some drugs can increase the risk of broken lips, such as:
- Vitamin A supplements
- Retinoids (Retin-A, Differin)
- Lithium - drugs for bipolar disorder
- Chemotherapy drugs
- Anti-acne medication isotretinoin, or Accutane
Tips for overcoming dry and cracked lips
The best thing you can do to treat and prevent dry lips from repeating is to routinely apply SPF lipbalm and get enough of your fluid intake every day.
In addition, you can also do lip scrub. Use a soft lip scrub before applying lipbalm and lipstick. Scrub grains will remove dead and scaly skin cells, leaving a new and healthy layer of lip skin.
Towards bedtime, apply lipbalm. Avoid lipbalm containing menthol, camphor, peppermint, citrus extract, or fragrance. These ingredients can aggravate dry and cracked lips.
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