How to beat cold sores

How to beat cold sores

(If you don't want to know about cold sores, and just want the therapy, scroll all the way down)

If you have ever suffered with cold sores, (herpes simplex virus -HSV- type 1) you know how annoying they are: first, the redness, then the tingling, the crust, not to mention the pain and the insult of the ugly scab, all this lasting for about two weeks.

I suffered from cold sores in my twenties and thirties, but fortunately they all but disappeared by the time I was about 35.

Hurrah!

I was finally free from this horrible problem.

UNTIL - I was 39 weeks pregnant with my daughter and a student visited me with a baby who had chicken pox (but nobody knew until the day after she visited me).

Terrified, my students duly informed me and apologised profusely for letting me have contact with chicken pox - which as most people know, can cause fatal damage and problems in pregnancy.

Now, I had already suffered from chicken pox when I was young, but I was somehow convinced that I had to check I was ok with my local doctor.

My G.P. immediately arranged for me to be vaccinated against chicken pox. Two doses, lucky me!

From Wikipedia: Varicella zoster virus (VZV) is one of eight herpes viruses known to infect humans. VZV infections are species-specific to humans. It causes chickenpox (varicella), a disease most commonly affecting children, teens and young adults and herpes zoster (shingles) in older adults; shingles is rare in children. 

VZV is known by many names, including chickenpox virus, varicella virus, zoster virus, and human herpesvirus type 3 (HHV-3).

My baby daughter was born a week later and she was perfectly healthy. My doctor told me that because I had the vaccine, she was protected from chicken pox.

I believed it.

However, a year or so later, when my son, who was attending school, became infected with chicken pox, and sure enough, within five days he had passed it to my supposedly immune daughter. While he got over it in 5 days, she was very poorly and got really bad rashes. 

Her scars are still there years later.

So far so good for a person whose blood was supposed to be full of antibodies from the recent vaccine.

However, it is not all.

In that very year, I started to have cold sores again. Not small, little things like the ones I used to have. They were large, painful, spread, and occurring multiple times. It was horrible.

For several years they kept appearing. Then, perhaps as a coincidence while I got my qualifications in naturopathy and changed my diet, they became rare and smaller again.

Now I am 52 and I get cold sore once every 2 years or so.

Last year, after the last outbreak, I researched for days on end every possible natural remedy I could use to fight the virus the next time. This is because I have used Acyclovir and other over-the-counter medicines for many, many years but they never seemed to make any difference.

In April this year I woke up one day and - horror- I spotted 2 tiny dots under my lips. Herpes was back again.

But this time, I was better prepared for the battle. I had a list of natural remedies and most of them were already in my kitchen cupboard.

I grabbed the list and immediately had the following capsules that morning and every morning for a week:

• Vitamin B
• Bee pollen
• Goldenseal
• Calcium
• Iron
• Vitamin C

(all the capsules were meant to help the immune system and some deficiencies)

I added Echinacea tincture (1tsp) also to boost the immune system. I had it for a few days.

I also prepared a big smoothie with my Vitamix. I drank 3 cups a day of the green smoothy for 4 days.

In the container I put:

• 1 pineapple
• Spirulina
• Wheat grass

Then I prepared a lemon grass tea (after picking the leaves from my garden) and I mixed it with liquorice tea (flavonoids in licorice extract counteract the growth of the herpes simplex virus, at least in test tubes. The net effect may be a reduction in the severity and duration of herpes symptoms.) I also had every day one pure liquorice stick from Saila (bought in Italy, no sugar)

Other natural remedies for cold sores which I didn't use this time are:

• aloe vera
• nutritional yeast
• garlic
• seaweeds
• Pau d'Arco tea
• tea tree oil

I also totally avoided eating any sugar, chocolate and peanuts.

I applied every day a cream of calendula and witch hazel.

I took a photo every day to see if I had any changes.

To my great delight and surprise, the 2 dots became 3 and stopped there. No pain, no spreading, no tingling, no scabs, and no itching.

A week after the start of the problem, I have 3 red dots but I had not suffered from ANY of the other symptoms.

You are welcome to ask any questions or try these remedies yourselves. As for me, I will ensure I will always have them ready!

Note added in 2025.

This year I suddenly got the 3 dots again. I applied only tea tree oil, and continued my regimen of multivitamins, great diet etc. The sores remain 3 but the area affected by redness was way less than 1 cm wide.

In less than 3 days the crusts were dissolving and in 6 days there was no more sign of a cold sore.