Moronacity Cycling Journal » Health and Nutrition
Red, Painful, Peeling Lips
By Diane UrsuI spent the last month fighting a condition that created a lot of pain and bleeding for me: chapped lips. I know. It’s weird.
It started about the time of Ore to Shore. I headed to Lakeview Arena to get my registration packet and meet my friends, Ali. Ali presented me with a little gift of lip balm (I’ll talk more about that in a later post). The timing was great because, while I had been using Chapstick, my lips were feeling very tight and dry.
I tried the new lip balm, and I kept trying it throughout the next month, but it didn’t really do anything. Over the following month, my lips would become bright red, tighten, peel, crack, crust, and bleed. Just when I thought the last peeling layer was almost finished, the vicious cycle would happen, again. Grrr. It hurt.
I began to wonder if my condition was due to a product I had been using since Ore to Shore weekend. It was toothpaste. I tried a new toothpaste and it would make my mouth feel really dry. The lips soon followed. I won’t tell you which toothpaste it is, because it might not affect you the same way. I will, however, share an article I wrote explaining how toothpaste can cause this: Toothpaste and Chapped Lips.
Ohhhhh man, hope it’s not the chicken poop.
Di, my dentist told me that it’s really not that uncommon to be allergic to your toothpaste. I was having some strange things happen in my mouth with a certain toothpaste & linked it to my floss – but, it was my toothpaste causing my gums to … shed? peel? yah, grosssssssssssss but true. 
I don’t think this is really an allergy, otherwise there would be other symptoms in more obvious places. I think I was just having a normal reaction to a detergent in this particular toothpaste.