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Complementary Medicine / Re: Have you tried Ice for curing cold sores?
« on: 21/10/2008 17:51:48 »
No cold sores for more than a day in 2 years now. I'd had cold sores for 40+ years usually every few months. They're even present in my toddler pictures. Nasal ones were the worst for appearance as you can imagine. Once when I had braces placed they made a continuous ring around my mouth.
Stumper makes a very good point about diet. If you are feeling stressed or have the least bit of a tingling cold sore aura ABSOLUTELY swear off all chocolate especially dark chocolate until you are well out of cold sore harms way. Peanut butter, nuts and red grapes flame the fires of a cold sore too. If you are a dark chocolate fiend limit your intake even on your good weeks to lessen the likelihood of a sore beginning. These foods are high in arginine and cold sores absolutely love it. Cheap and important is the ingestion of daily lysine to counterbalance the arginine. I also carry them with me. Salmon is a good substitute for lysine. You can't avoid arginine all together nor should you want to your whole life as it is good for your heart but it is the lysine:arginine ratio that keeps cold sores at bay. So..if you know you overindulged with nuts or chocolate take an EXTRA lysine and save yourself a lot of grief.
ICE is indeed great, thanks for the tip from multiple contributors.
If you use Valtrex be sure it is prescribed as 2 grams the 1st dose and 2 grams repeated in 12 hours then finish. You only need 4 pills for an episode but must be pulsed in this manner. This is the recommended dosing for cold sores but some doctors believe it can be dosed the same as for shingles; not so. If the dose is stretched out over a few days or a week it does not work very well if at all and you've wasted money on a lot more than necessary pills. Ask for the 1 gram pills, the highest dose it comes in, as higher milligram pills are cheaper than many lower milligram pills. Valtrex is for last ditch efforts.
Really if you take lysine daily year round with extra for dietary faux pas, monitor your chocolate and nut intake, and if anemic - take iron to lower your stress level, you shouldn't need Valtrex except when you slip up as we all do. But again, the ice has really saved me even in that case when recently I foolishly had no lysine (or salmon) available.
Good luck to all.
Stumper makes a very good point about diet. If you are feeling stressed or have the least bit of a tingling cold sore aura ABSOLUTELY swear off all chocolate especially dark chocolate until you are well out of cold sore harms way. Peanut butter, nuts and red grapes flame the fires of a cold sore too. If you are a dark chocolate fiend limit your intake even on your good weeks to lessen the likelihood of a sore beginning. These foods are high in arginine and cold sores absolutely love it. Cheap and important is the ingestion of daily lysine to counterbalance the arginine. I also carry them with me. Salmon is a good substitute for lysine. You can't avoid arginine all together nor should you want to your whole life as it is good for your heart but it is the lysine:arginine ratio that keeps cold sores at bay. So..if you know you overindulged with nuts or chocolate take an EXTRA lysine and save yourself a lot of grief.
ICE is indeed great, thanks for the tip from multiple contributors.
If you use Valtrex be sure it is prescribed as 2 grams the 1st dose and 2 grams repeated in 12 hours then finish. You only need 4 pills for an episode but must be pulsed in this manner. This is the recommended dosing for cold sores but some doctors believe it can be dosed the same as for shingles; not so. If the dose is stretched out over a few days or a week it does not work very well if at all and you've wasted money on a lot more than necessary pills. Ask for the 1 gram pills, the highest dose it comes in, as higher milligram pills are cheaper than many lower milligram pills. Valtrex is for last ditch efforts.
Really if you take lysine daily year round with extra for dietary faux pas, monitor your chocolate and nut intake, and if anemic - take iron to lower your stress level, you shouldn't need Valtrex except when you slip up as we all do. But again, the ice has really saved me even in that case when recently I foolishly had no lysine (or salmon) available.
Good luck to all.