Monday, September 20, 2010

Cold Sores --- Yuck!

I must have said something negative because I have cold sores galore!

They started appearing Saturday afternoon on my left, lower lip. A batch has even moved just down from my lip. I've never had them spread down before. This morning I noticed that another batch has started on my right, lower lip. I may be using a straw to drink my meals. :P

It's been some time since I've had a cold sore so I've been fortunate. They appear about a week after a stressful period, which I had last week.

I take Lysine, 500 mg, one a day as maintenance. I increase to three times a day when I have a cold sore. I use a Lysine topical cream to keep the sore moist. After they start healing, they can crack and bleed.

I understand that cold sores are common for Fibromyalgia sufferers.

5 comments:

  1. I hadn't heard that they were common for Fibromyalgia. It's important to keep in mind that cold sores are a type of herpes, and should be treated as such. Don't kiss your family when you have them, make sure to wash your hands after touching your mouth (during a breakout) before touching other parts of your body (or other people).

    My hubby gets them really bad when he's stressed out and after a couple of years of being married I managed to inherit them. We both take Valtrex daily for preventative but (like you) have found that L-Lysine does more to prevent them than Valtrex does. That said, we both take 1000mg daily to prevent and have found that since doing so he's not been getting them nearly so much. He was seeing clusters of them one after the other almost constantly for months. But, after about a year of the Lysine rarely sees them. They do tend to be associated with stress, and we find that when he's dealing with more stress at work (or because of my health) he's more likely to see them come on.

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  2. Thanks for commenting Julie.

    I take 500 mg a day of Lysine. When they re raging like they are now, I take 1,500 mg a day. The best medicine would be to cut out stress in our life. LOL

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  3. Deb, I get them too..its all related to the nerve endings like with shingles and epstein barr too...chicken pox virus did us in as kids I guess...

    I have not had one in a while but wow I am hurting and need to fly to Chicago today, already tired..

    take care and hope they heal soon! hugs
    Barb

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  4. I get them too, also suffer from FMS, I found that Australian tea tree oil applied directly to the cold sore cut the healing time literally in half! the lysine has been a wonderful new find for me too! I just had a horrible outbreak recently and discovered both to be a God send! I think my outbreak was due to way overdoing it, when I had family in town, and spending way too much time in the sun! Good luck and I hope they heal quickly!

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  5. The easiest way to get rid of cold sores is to use Valacycovir (Valtrex). This is a generic anti-viral drug that actually will stop cold sore breakouts before they happen. Treatment is for just one day and you take the medication when you feel the first sign of tingling on your lip or mouth.

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