I didn’t check the forums thoroughly, so hopefully this hasn’t already been brought to light.
When I was younger, I was put on Acutane for my skin. This started to dry out the areas around my nostrils and my lips. The doctor had explained to me that this was going to be the case and to apply petroleum jelly to my nose area and chapstick to my lips.
So, I get off the medication after a couple months and decide to stop using the Vaseline and chapstick. Dropping the Vaseline was no problem, but dropping the chapstick… Oh boy.
I discovered that my lips weren’t producing moisture on their own anymore. In hindsight, I should have stopped right then since I had only been 2-3 months into the habit, but instead I continued on. It’s now years later and the few times I have tried to ween (spelling) myself from the chapstick, I find the pain is just annoying enough to keep me from sleep. Cosmetically, cracked lips aren’t very attractive either.
So, perhaps it’s not a chemical addiction, but a subconscious urge for moisturization of your lips? That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it!!! : )
I’m not sure why you posted that. I am going to assume it’s because you think I am unaware of the original content. That’s not the case. I was actually commenting further on the already existing reply of Cecil’s on the subject.
It was left pretty much unanswered, so I thought I would share my theory with everyone.
Welcome to the SDMB, and thank thee for posting thy comment.
Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site.
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Cecil’s column can be found on-line at the link provided by esteemed poster Duck Duck Goose (who is a she.)
So your theory is that your lip cells have become accustomed to chapstick? Aren’t lip cells, like skin cells, constantly being regenerated?
Or perhaps you just got out of the habit of licking your lips when you started using chapstick?
Yeah, I don’t think the OP has an airtight case either, but I don’t think it’s the actual skin cells that would cause the problem. Wouldn’t the sense of dryness be caused by some sort of nerve cell or something like that?
I believe there are actually glands that produce the moisture. They do react to nerves on the lips though.
But if you were to take insulin via syringe eventually your pancreas would just stop working. This was explained to my by a doctor who was explaining about a period of the pancreas known as the Honeymoon period.
So, it’s possible that the glands were sensing that there was always moisture and then stopped producing it. At some point they became useless.
It’s definitely not just a ‘feeling’ of being dry as I have tried to quit chapstick on several occasions and I would get up to the 2 or 3 week mark of not using chapstick and my lips actually were dry, cracked, and bleeding. Not just feeling dried. So there is more to it than nerves, for sure.
My lips are usually moistened by my salivary glands.
I use my salivary glands for more than moisturizer.
No doubt this happened, but I would think you were just out of the habit of moistening your lips. Maybe layer of skin that you waxed for so long was too tender and unexposed to the elements… like the skin of a recently healed wound.
Regarding the above quote by Nametag, does anyone know if people who are stuck in a cycle of oil-based lip product usage can break the habit by transitioning to water-based lip products and weaning themselves off the lip balm addiction that way?
(Anything to get me away from this horrible addiction.)
I have long been dependent on (which, IMHO, is by far a more apt description than “addicted to”) lip balms of some sort. Call it psychosomatic if you like, but in my experience without them my lips dry, crust, and split. I have indeed found, though, that water-based products - I mainly rely on Lubriderm - are more effective than vaseline or wax based.