Ayurvedic Guide to Manage Chapped Lips

What Are Chapped Lips?

The word ‘chapped’ or ‘cracked lips’ describes dry lips. Lips are delicate and don't contain glands; they are more exposed to the external environment. Lips get chapped on exposure to cold, dry, or windy weather, dehydration, and sometimes underlying medical conditions.

Chapped lips irritate you with pain, flaky skin, burns, and sometimes tears with blood. They are common, with most people getting affected once a year; chapped lips can make you insecure. The condition is usually harmless, so protect and hydrate them properly.

How Common Are Chapped Lips?

Chapped lips can occur at any age. If you have dry skin or have the habit of licking lips, you are more prone to chapped lips. People living in extremely dry or cold weather experience severe chapped lips frequently.

Seasonally chapped lips are typical in the winter season. In other seasons, the lips can get dry, sore, and flaky if you do not take proper lip care. The rash use of cosmetics can contribute to this; even the cup of fluid intake matters.

Breathing with mouth and licking lips results in dry, chapped lips among children and teenagers. They can also get affected with lip licker’s dermatitis, characterised by a rash around the mouth and dry lips.

What Causes Chapped Lips?

Dry, chapped lips are caused by environmental or medical factors or lack of self-care, including cold, dry weather, windy days, sun exposure, spicy foods, saliva, and licking lips. Lip layers are too thin and don’t contain oil glands, making them more susceptible to getting cracked. The factors causing chapped lips include:

Environmental Factors

Exposure to cold air with little humidity during winter can cause extremely chapped lips. Dry or hot weather can dry up the moisture content in the lips, resulting in the conditions. Working outdoors or frequent sun exposure can also worsen chapped lips.

Lifestyle Factors

Lack of self-care contributes to severely chapped lips. Skipping fluids and experimenting with cosmetics can cause chapped lips. Not drinking enough water can reduce the moisture content in the lips. Eating more spicy and salty spices in the meals can also contribute to dry, chapped lips.

Habitual licking of lips causes harm more than benefits. Saliva from the tongue strips the moisture, causing further dryness. Mouth breathing during sleep also dries the lips.

Experimenting with different cosmetics or beauty products can harm the lips. Wearing irritating lip balms or lipsticks, harsh products such as menthol, camphor, salicylic acid, and holding metal with the lips can also strip the moisture from lips.

Health Factors

Lips can get dry or cracked if you suffer from a common cold, fever, etc. The chance of getting lip dryness is higher if you are prone to allergies or have an autoimmune disorder, thyroid disorder, etc. Deficiency of vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin B and iron, can cause extremely chapped lips.

Risk Factors For Chapped Lips

The Prakriti, or unique constitution, can influence the formation of chapped lips. Having Vata Prakriti or Vata imbalance in the body increases the chance of getting chapped lips. The skin type also contributes to the formation of chapped lips. Even though everyone can get dry lips once a year, people with dry skin are particularly affected by this.

Certain medications and supplements can increase the risk of developing dry, chapped lips. Chemotherapy or an overdose of vitamin A supplements, retinoids, and lithium also increases the chance of getting lips cracked. It can also occur due to bacterial, fungal, or yeast infections and diseases, including dehydration, malnutrition, Sjorgens syndrome, Crohn's disease, and other autoimmune disorders.

Chapped Lips- Symptoms

Chapped Lips are common, and the symptoms can be managed with proper care at home. In rare conditions, it can worsen, requiring medical care. The common symptoms of chapped lips include:

• Dryness or scaling of lips
• Flaking or peeling of lips
• Mild pain with itching and burns
• Tingling or stinging sensation
• Sores in the lips and mouth
• In severe cases, lips get cracked, swollen and bleed

Usually, the symptoms can be resolved with proper care and preventive measures at home. But even if the symptoms persist for an extended time, consult your physician and rule out the underlying medical causes.

How Are Chapped Lips Diagnosed?

Chapped lips are assessed with a detailed medical history and clinical examination. A brief discussion about preexisting medications, underlying health conditions, and symptoms will be done. A visual exam on the lips and surrounding areas can rule out the cause of chapped lips.

Sometimes, they advise a patch or swab test for infections and a blood test to rule out nutritional deficiencies. In rare cases, a biopsy is recommended to check infections.

When To Seek Medical Treatment For Chapped Lips?

Most often, chapped lips are cured with a proper diet and self-care routine. However, in some individuals, the condition worsens, causing extreme pain, dryness, and bleeding. This could be a sign of an existing medical condition or an infection.

If the condition does not improve after more than a few weeks of self-care, visit your physician to rule out underlying medical conditions, including chelitis, malnutrition, or dehydration.

Cheilitis

Some individuals develop a severe form of chapped lips known as chelitis. The condition occurs due to infections, allergies, dental trauma, use of orthodontic braces or dentures, and behaviours including lip-licking. The affected individual experiences cracked skin at the corner of the lips with bleed, dark pink or red colour, and ulcers with white plaques on the surface.

Dehydration

Water is essential for optimal functioning of the body. When the body loses more fluid than you take, dehydration happens. It occurs during severe weather, while ill with a fever, vomiting, etc., when taking diuretics, and when one is dehydrated. One may experience headaches, dizziness, constipation, reduced appetite, chapped lips, dry mouth, and muscle cramps.

Malnutrition

Malnutrition can result from insufficient or excessive consumption of vital elements. The deficiency of vitamins, especially vitamin B complex, and minerals such as iron contribute to dry, cracked skin—the individual experiences skin dryness, including the lips.

Chapped Lips In Ayurveda

Ayurveda considers chapped lips under the category of Oshtakopa rogas and refers to the condition as Vataja Oshtakopa. A rise in Vata dosha can make the lips dry, cracked, and fissured, with pain and black colouration.

Including Ayurvedic practices, herbs, and behaviours that pacify the vitiated Vata dosha into the daily regimen helps with the cure for chapped lips.

Treatment And Prevention Of Chapped Lips

Ayurveda offers traditional healing practices to provide the best lip treatment for chapped lips. Simple chapped lips remedies can be practised in the comfort of your home are:

• Make the lips hydrated - Drink plenty of water, herbal tea, or dosha-appropriate fresh juices.
• Use an Ayurvedic massage to soothe your lips. Massaging the lips with virgin coconut oil, vata-pacifying oils, or ghee can cure chapped lips and make lips glow.
• Herbal exfoliation -Exfoliating the lips once a week can improve blood circulation and help remove dry, flaky skin. Consider using these lip exfoliates:
  1. Mix a teaspoon of coffee powder, sugar, and coconut oil into a paste. Exfoliate the lips using the scrub for two to three minutes.
  2. Gently rub the lips with a tablespoon of honey and sugar granules till the sugar melts. Honey moisturises the lips, while sugar helps remove dead skin.
• Nasyam - Instilling medicated herbal oil with Vata pacifying properties to the nostrils daily benefits by alleviating the vitiated Vata Dosha.
• Protect the lips outside - While going out, protect the lips from extreme environmental conditions using a lip balm with UV protection. You can also opt for coconut oil or natural lip balm as a base.
• Nadi Swedam - Fomentating the lips with herbal decoctions removes the dead skin and nourishes lips.
• Choose your lip balm wisely. Lip balms can shield the lips from the outdoors; therefore, the choice should be planned carefully. Including bee wax, lanolin, and petroleum jelly in the lip balm locks out the moisture and prevents them from dryness.

Ayurvedic Herbs For Chapped Lips

• Aloe vera -The anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties help to treat severely chapped lips. Go for applying freshly extracted aloe vera gel for optimal results.
• Coconut oil - Coconut oil remains the easiest and quickest chapped lips remedy. It helps manage dry lips and repairs them. Use coconut oil on your lips every day before bed.
• Cucumber - Rubbing slices of raw cucumber on the lips to obtain an instant dry lips remedy.
• Cocoa butter and Shea butter -These might help the lips recover from the roughness of extreme weather conditions.
• Honey - A natural cleanser and an exfoliator, formulations with honey are one of the best remedies for chapped lips.
• Ghee - Applying ghee will enhance blood flow, repair damaged skin cells, and soothe the area surrounding the lips.

Lifestyle And Dietary Remedies For Chapped Lips

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle benefits in achieving healthy and nourished lips. Here are some lifestyle remedies for chapped lips you can opt for:

• Use a scarf or a ski mask when going outside to protect the lips from extreme weather conditions.
• Avoid licking the lips, as saliva can dry the lips further.
• Avoid peeling of lip skin as it causes bleeding and prevents faster healing.
• Reapply lip balm every few hours throughout the day.
• Avoid using cosmetics and products that are allergic to the lips.

As for lifestyle, diet also plays an essential role in chapped lips treatment. The dietary inclusions you can explore are:

• Hydrate yourself with enough fluids.
• Meals should not contain too much salt or spice as this might cause lips to become even more dry and cracked.
• Add minerals and antioxidants to your meals.
• Opt for meals supplying essential vitamins.
• The diet includes apples, berries, watermelon, citrus fruits, milk, nuts, and eggs.

Key Takeaways

• Chapped lips occur when the lips get dry and cause flakes, scales, itching, bleed with excessive pain.
• It happens due to environmental, medical, and lifestyle causes.
• Chapped lips are correlated with Vataja Oshtakopa in Ayurveda, which occurs by an imbalance of Vata Dosha in the body.
• Ayurveda recommends many treatments and home remedies to cure cracked lips.