Question: I have a hard circular patch of dry, hard skin the the middle of my top lip. It's not painful nor does it in any way affect my health. I've had this patch, which has a diameter of about 2cm for as long as I can remember. 15 years at least. I'm 24 now and I've had this since early childhood.

The patch becomes dry and scaly around the edges until it peels off or I bite it off out of annoyance. I thought it was my biting it off that was causing it to reoccur. However I spent 8 weeks with out biting it off, something which was immensely difficult to do, I should also say. And while it was not as bad at first, within a few days it had returned to normal.

I've tried exfoliating my lips using a soft toothbrush and vaseline. This helped with how rough it felt but didn't remove the problem and as soon as exfoliating stopped it would return to normal in a day or two.

Any advice? This is purely for my own aesthetic reasons as the patch can be very visible at times. Thank you.