Lip Balm and Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Posted by GI Monitor
by Thousands of IBD (Crohn’s and Colitis) patients from around the world are using GI Monitor to actively monitor their conditions. As a result, this community is acutely aware of potential correlations between symptoms, meals, medications and other general observations. When we added Socialize to GI Monitor, our users began talking about their observations and the potential for research became glaringly evident.
I will warn you first that the example I am about to provide will seem trivial, but there is a deeper point embedded. In a recent post on Socialize, our social feature within GI Monitor, I told fellow users that I have an addiction to Chapstick. The post was more conversational than exploratory and was really just intended to express something about myself to the community. And then the thread began to grow with comments from other IBD patients who share my addiction to Chapstick or other lip balms. And then someone asked if dry lips might be related to IBD.
This potential correlation is not so important to patient quality-of-life. But what if there is a deeper correlation that we don’t yet completely understand? When combined with demographic and geographic information, perhaps it could further our understanding of Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis. Now I’ll move on to the main point of this post (sorry its taking so long). How long would it take for the research community to learn whether or not IBD patients have a higher incidence of chapped lips? The answer is that it would take a while, and one way to ramp up that timeframe is to analyze data from social disease management applications. Mobile health apps and social networks will lead to areas of research that might have never been otherwise explored, resulting in a better understanding of human health and wellness.
Dry lips hands and skin
I have Chron's disease and have found that I also need a Allergist to help manage symptoms. I have Eczema, rash, hives and Uticeria.Overall dry flaky skin all over, even lips. My allergist informed me it is part of the autoimmune. The immune system is over reacting and ultimately attacking good cells. I have allergy type medications to help some of these symptoms. My Allergist has been most helpful in managing this and I recommend getting one.
Dry lips, dry SKIN, steroids, and IBD....
The question about a correlation between IBD and chapped lips is interesting, I think, when considered withing a broader frame of reference. I have UC. I am also plagued by dry skin, year round. This includes hands, face, scalp, and, yes, lips. So, not only do I have lip balm with me at all times, I also regularly moisturize my face, hands, and other areas of my body on a daily basis (and more often as needed). I also rely on daily dandruff shampoo use.
This practice, in of itself, is probably not so unusual or limited to persons with IBD. However, I recently noticed a CHANGE when (for the first time) going on a treatment of prednisone (40mg daily) to help kick a flare-up. Within two days, my face was OILY. Extremely so. So oily, that I have not used moisturizer as I typically would. AND, I find I must wash before bed at night, just to rid the excess oil.
I know that a side effect of prednisone is acne (which, thankfully, I have yet to get, knock on wood), but I do wonder whether there is a deeper connection here. Could it be that there might be something abnormal in the body's production - or use of - steroids normally produced by the adrenal glands that correlates with inflammation? My logic is simple (and biologically ignorant), but it goes like this: If abnormal steroidal production leads to things like dry skin, it may also lead to things like IBD. Perhaps dry skin (or chapped lips) share a common bodily origin (or malfunction); treatment of that malfunction (such as steroid supplements) may very well reverse both the dryness and the the IBD.
Just some thoughts. I suspect there has been some study somewhere into this very issue...it would be interesting to learn whether there is such a connection.
Chapped Lips and Hands
I missed this discussion on Socialize, but I'll jump in now and say that I do have chapped lips. However, I've been dealing with it since I was somewhere between 11-13 years old and have been addicted to ChapStick since then as well. Crohn's disease never came up in my life until I was 22 or so. But the development of Crohn's has correlated with how dry and chapped my hands have become. No matter how frequently I apply lotion... they still get very cry, causing my knuckles to crack.
Maybe my chapped lips were actually the earliest sign I'd develop Crohn's, but there's been no research to indicate such and we didn't know then, and still don't really know now.