What Does A Bump On Upper Lip Indicate?

Posted on Wed, 25 Jun 2014

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 Answered on

Sat, 12 Jul 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : Saturday a bump suddenly appeared on outside of my upper lip in my mustache. sore to touch or squeeze and drained clear fluid and a little blood if squeezed too hard it would scab over but not go away on monday I wad told by two different doctors on here and my wife it's a cold sore. Monday afternoon my lip swelled up quite large all around the sore but by yesterday afternoon the swelling went down to almost but not quite normal but this morning woke up to almost my entire upper lip swollen huge 3or 4 times normal making everything difficult. also yesterday started noticing some pain along bottom of jaw on soft tissue on left and along inside edge of jawbone. pleas help Ne I'm getting both annoyed and worried but can afford a doctor especially if it's something silly like just a cold sore

Answered by Dr. Geetika Paul (1 hour later)

Brief Answer:
Cold sore, with associated swelling

Detailed Answer:
Hi

I have seen the attached picture .
Going by the description of events and the clinical appearance, it surely looks like a cold sore.
Now the swelling that you are developing is a part of cold sore only. It is a kind of reactionary swelling which can occur during episodes of development of cold sores.
You need to take some oral antihistamine like tablet claritin once a day or you can even take benadryl . This will take care of the reactionary swelling. As far as the cold sore is concerned , it mostly resolves on its own but application of a topical antibiotic cream like neosporin or mupirocin twice a day over it will prevent any superinfection .

Hope it helps

Dr Geetika Paul

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj