Advice for cold sore sufferers

Daydream Believer

Not just relevant to India, but everywhere...

Lysine is my favourite supplement, and works to either prevent the occurence of cold sores, or at least minimise the effects of an outbreak. It's amazing stuff.

Lysine is an amino acid which you can buy in tablet form from health food stores in the UK (& I assume, elsewhere?), and some pharmacies. Not sure if it's available to buy in India - it probably is, everything else seems to be - can anyone there confirm or deny? If not, I'll be there myself in a few days & will update.

It's works (for me & for loads of people I have shared this info with) either as a preventative (I take it when I'm run down, sunburnt, or sick), or as a treatment if one sneaks up on you. I forgot to take lysine to a festival in Europe (what a idiot!) & ended up getting more cold sores than I have ever had at once, but after a week of lysine, vitamin c, vitamin e oil, and aloe vera (last two applied directly), I was completely healed & very relieved.

The very basic way of explaining how is works is that to get a cold sore, you have to have the virus (either newly contracted or otherwise), then have an excess of one amino acid (arginine, which is in chocolate and nuts) and a lack of lysine (hence why it works), AND are run down/stressed/sunburnt/been snogging a boy with a stubbly face /whatever your triggers are, then you (might) get a cold sore. I think having too much sugar makes things worse too.

There's loads of stuff on the 'net about it if you want a more technical explanation than mine. Or maybe an IM doc can add to this?

I was told this some years ago by a complete stranger in a park in London & it really helped me so much - esp when travelling, as my lips seem to be esp sensitive to the sun, or when I get run down.

Hope this helps some people!

x

P.S I love IM!