I’ve had trouble with swollen, red, and flaky lips all winter.
Well, it’s not actually the lips themselves but the two to three mm stripe beyond what we call the vermillion border in the trade. I have spent most of the last few months looking like the victim of a very poor appearance medicine specialist doing lip fillers whilst drunk and stoned, and/or amateur hour at beauty technician school doing lip liners (lesson one: what not to do.) People I’ve known for years keep doing a double take when they see my face. It’s awful. Why do you think I was wearing a mask in radiology today?
At the end of my tether, I finally asked my husband (the GP) tonight what he thought. He ummed and ahhed, made some dumb suggestions but also two good ones (a- try steroid cream, and b-see a dermatologist if it doesn’t get better). After I sniffed disparagingly at some of his ideas, he did comment reassuringly that when I eventually develop heart failure, he’s much better at looking after that. Which gives me something to look forward to anyway.
