When You Need a Cold Sore Treatment ASAP
When you feel that tingly, itchy, burning sensation on your lip or inside of your mouth, you know a cold sore is well on its way. Cold sores, caused by the herpes simplex virus, have no cure and show up at what seems to be the most inconvenient times.
These highly contagious little blisters are troubling not only because they look unattractive, but because they make eating and drinking painful, and kissing impossible. Cold sores usually last between seven and ten days – days that you’d rather be free of discomfort!
So when you get a rash of cold sores, you need to have a good cold sore treatment readily available. Cold sore remedies can be found in your drug store or prescribed by your doctor. There are also several types of herbal cold sore remedies that are appropriate for people who prefer to keep things natural.
To treat a cold sore outbreak, you will want to attack it from the inside and the outside, too. For the attack from the inside, you can take a prescribed medication such as acyclovir, in pill form. Acyclovir has been used for treating chickenpox, genital herpes and cold sores (all are from a related family of viruses).
You can also attack from the inside with herbal/natural treatments such as zinc, echinacea, or lysine supplements and vitamin C to help your immune system battle the viral infection. Each of these supplements is known to bolster and activate your immune system, and zinc and lysine seem to have properties that work directly on the herpes simplex virus.
Over-the-counter medications can help from the outside. You can use creams that contain docosanol, a compound that inhibits the effect of the herpes virus, so it can keep a breakout from happening, or at least from becoming full-blown. These medications should be applied at the first sign of a cold sore. You can also use OTC medications that help to keep the area moisturized so that sores don’t crack and bleed.
Other cold sore remedies that work from the outside can include acyclovir cream, which is available by prescription and is applied directly to the area. Topical anesthetics that contain benzocaine or benzyl alcohol will help to relieve the pain associated with your cold sores. And lemon balm cream is a natural treatment that has antiviral properties that can reduce the duration of cold sores and also help prevent future breakouts.
Even though you can’t cure the herpes simplex virus once you’ve got it, you can find a useful cold sore treatment or two that will help you to avert full-blown cold sore outbreaks and the discomfort and embarrassment that accompanies them.
The key is to find what works best for you and to attack the virus from both the outside and the inside and to prohibit your cold sores from getting worse, while preventing new outbreaks, or at least making them less severe.
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