Chitosan update

Hey everyone. Last night I ran out and got some chitosan from Vitamin World (unknown level of deacetylation). I put one 1000 mg tablet into a glass container, along with one 20oz capful of white distilled vinegar (sorry, don’t have the proper measuring gear), and let the two sit for about 3 hours (so that the acetic acid could partially solubilize the chitosan). In order to speed up the process, I broke up the tablet manually and mixed it thoroughly.

I applied a paste of the mixture using a q-tip and, after letting it dry for a few minutes, then applied a little bit of Burt’s Bees lotion (the mixture seems to dry everything out quite a bit). Then, I covered my lip up with a band-aid and went to sleep.

In the morning, my lips felt different than they have in a while—not raw, but not overly thick either. It’s obviously way too early to tell, and I’ll keep everyone posted, but it seems to be a preliminary positive sign.

This might sound like an extremely odd procedure, and that it might be best coupled with dancing around in a circle while chanting ;), but I’m actually basing this off of ideas that are at least a little bit scientific. Namely, that chitosan might bond to negatively charged surfaces, such as mucosal membranes and some bacteria; that it might be incorporated into healing tissue and speed or be active in certain aspects of the wound healing process; and that it might interact with and/or moderate some growth factors and influence fibroblast proliferation and/or keratinocyte action (maybe having an effect on hyperkeratinization).

I posted a picture taken when I woke up and I’ll try to update throughout the process.
Tweet