Yesterday my wife woke up with a swollen upper lip. It looked like some one hit her or she was allergic to bee stings and one stung her in the middle of the night. For a good part of the morning she put warm compresses on her lip and by the time I came home from work (5pm) the lip was normal. Well, when she woke up this morning, oh my LORD!, the lip had gotten worse.:eek: She says that it doesn’t hurt much but she can definitely tell that it is swollen. Any ideas on what could be wrong with my wife?
Spider bite? I’d have her see a doctor.
Hopefully it’s not the same thing, but just before my dad had a heart attack his mouth/lips became swolen like you are describing.
Any chance she is biting it in some way in her sleep? (Like some people involuntarily grind their teeth?)
i don’t think so. there are no bite marks or any marks for that matter. i dought that its a spider also becouse she sleeps on her stumic with her face barried in her pillow. and there are no spider bites.
Sounds like you’ve established that it occurs during her sleep cycle. Does she always sleep on her stomach? Check the pillow; heck, you might want to change pillows, anyway. Maybe she should try sleeping in a different position, such as on her side.
If it keeps up another day or two, though, you might want to see a doctor…
Does she take any medication? Some medicines, particularly the ACE inhibitors, can cause lip swelling.
What sort of face creams is your wife using?
The reason I ask is that I had a similar problem last week. I woke up and the area above my top lip was so swollen I looked like I had a beak, not a mouth.
It turned out to be a medicated cream I was using on my face - it had got into a cut and obviously reacted. I worked this out because I had done exactly the same thing to my eye the previous week. I’m a slow learner, it appears.
I had this exact same thing happen to me last year. (Woke up with a swollen lip.) I’m still not certain what caused it. The only thing I can think of: I ate some home-made chili at a friend’s house. I suspect there was something in the chili I was allergic to.
It took 3 weeks for the swelling to completely subside.
About a year ago, my oldest daughter had a swollen lip. Her regular ped was out of town, so I had to take her to the doc that was filling in. He took one look at her mouth and said “whenever I see swelling of the lips, I have to think sinus infection”. I have no idea what sinus infection would have to do with it, but he checked her, and sure enough she had a sinus infection! She took antibiotics, and the swelling went away. I’d see a doc about this.
This phenomenon is called “The Kissing Bug.”
I had the same thing happen to me as a kid. We couldn’t figure out any kind of cause. It was only my upper lip, and it lasted a couple of days if I remember right. I had no other symptoms, no cold or hives, etc. Maybe a reaction to some kind of insect? If so, then why isn’t it common?
I stumbled across an account by Charles Fort, that great collector of unusual phenomenon reports. Apparantly there was a spate of “swollen upper lip disease” in the newspapers one year. Authorities couldn’t trace the cause, and it was assumed to be some sort of insect plague. “Bit by the Kissing Bug.” But it was a one-time event many decades ago.
Sounds like her problem is that she just doesn’t listen.
Has your wife ever had a cold sore? This happened to me a couple months ago and it developed into a cold sore. Since I don’t ever recall having one before, it’s likely that all of the swelling was because this was the first time my body had to deal with the herpes virus.
The Kissing Bug is the common name for several large species of bugs that suck blood. Often they do so from the face, thus the name. The belong to the family Reduviidae, of the order Hemiptera, and two species of them are Triatoma sanguisuga and Triatoma megistus. Some carry the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas’ disease, but that’s not very common in the U.S.
What I’m getting at is that while a kissing bug could have possibly caused the swelling, I don’t think that any lip swelling is called the kissing bug.
On a totally different topic, I’m a long time fan of you and your website.
well, when she woke up today, the lip was OK. were going to keep an eye out for the next few days and see what happends. we think that it might be that she somehow sleeped on it wrong. is this possible for a lip to be sleeped on wrong? she sleeps face down in her pillow. seems wierd.
Could be an allergic reaction. Bought any grapes lately? Last time this happened at our place, it was an allergic reaction to grapes (or more likely, something on the grapes).
I have a similar reaction to some unknown (to me as of yet) agent that causes an allergic reaction. It is usually the first sign of a more serious case that involve hives. Anti-hystamines and now some Allegra seem to take care of it, but I’m probably going to an allergist and try to get to the bottom of things.