Persistent sore red chapped skin around mouth

[Izpie]

Dd, 4yrs, has always suffered with chapped lips but for the last couple of weeks the skin under her mouth has been red and sores.

Have been moisturising with baby creams but they're having little effect.

Any suggestions?

dd (7) has this all the time too. The only thing that seems to help control it is smothering with vaseline.

DS2 had this really badly a year or so ago. He kept licking it too, and at one point it looked terrible. Vaseline seemed to work.

Vaseline works. Dry the skin throughly at night and the completely cover the sore skin. It should be much better by the morning - really important that the skin is completely dry first.

Metanium, as for nappy rash, worked BRILLIANTLY on DS (5) for this.

He had sore, chapped, flaking skin below his lower lip all winter last year as he licks and chews his lips when cold. This year I tried metanium as I had some to hand (new baby in the house) and it cleared it up!

I spread it very thinly overnight every night. The yellow colour 'neutralised' the red chapped-ness so I didn't wash it off. It didn't look yellow on him, honest! Took a couple of days to look much better and about 2 weeks to totally heal.

Hi my cousins DD had this and my mum recommended Melrose- (you can get in most pharmacies, just ask as its usually behind the counter) it's an old fashioned remedy which apparently worked a treat my dad works outside in all weathers and swears by it too.

DS2 has this. Vaseline every night and every morning. Its the only way at this time of year. It gets better in summer.

Sudocreme works too. My son has it at the moment.

Blisteze, now called Blistex for the lips, to stop the licking in the first place!

Wow, thanks for all the replies. Will head put this morning to get some new things to try.

My DD has this - a red line underneath her lip where she's been biting/licking her lip and then it gets broken and looks like a coldsore. I used blistex lip moisturising cream from the chemists. Worked well. I told her to reapply it frequently at school until the teacher stopped her and told her she needed a note from the doctor . I told her that the teacher is always right but just go to the loo and do it privately...

Check the creams you are using don't have lanolin in - I found out as an adult I have an allergy to lanolin - for years I was moisturising and making things worse more sore and chapped- it was particularly bad when I was BF as I was using pure lanolin- I had no idea it was making everything so much worse. Blistex always works for me.

If it is v persistent it could be worth trying an anti fungal nappy cream. My dd always dribbled when having a bottle and developed quite a sore patch that we tried everything on. Then we tried the (generic cheap) anti fungal cream from the chemists and it was gone overnight.

My daughter (9) had this a few months ago. She always suffered from chapped dry lips. This particular time. It was really bad.Very chapped, dry cracked and sore. There was a dark red line surrounding the lips and red and sore around this too. After a couple of days of lots of vaseline, blistex etc to no avail, I took her to the doctors.

She said there was a secondary anti-fungal infection and prescribed dd with Trimovate Cream. Was told to only use it for a week at max. and only to the lips. Not on the skin as it could discolour the skin. Used only for 2 days morning and night and the red chapped crack lips disappeared. After 3 days, it was soft and pink. After that, was told to only mosturise with vaseline original - not with vaseline aloe vera or lipsyl etc and definately no more licking of lips as the licking of lips only dries it out even more.

Mine always had this (also have mild eczema) and it didn't disappear till they got rid of dummies,so was definately a dribble problem.I found many creams stung them (even eczema creams) but Vaseline didn't sting and helped a little.