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Posts Tagged ‘Cold Sores’

Herpes cold sore is a common illness caused by the herpes simplex viruses. One can easily characterized this infection by noticing a bunch of fluid filled blisters that appears either on red area of the skin or the mucous membrane. After activation, these blisters heal fast, however, they have tendency to reappear.

Viruses of cold sores are of two types, one is herpes simplex type I (HSV I) and other is herpes simplex type II (HSV II). HSV I cause the cold sores and HSV II causes genital herpes that comes on the genital organs of the body.

However, both types of viruses can infect any area of skin and mucous membrane. Almost 80% of the adult peoples have antibodies against HSV I in their body where as about 25% of adult peoples have antibodies against HSV II. Usually viruses transmit through close personal contact with active lesion. These viruses will attack the body in childhood but will never shows symptoms until teen age.

Entry of the viruses in the body is through mouth and then attacks the nerve cells. From there they travel towards the ganglia via nervous system. In ganglia viruses lays in dormant state. In the positive situations viruses comes in active stage and cold sores will out breaks. Weak defense of body to viruses lead to reactivation of the viruses and blisters will again out breaks.

Infection of these viruses can progress in different ways. Some of the peoples have mild or no symptoms. When the viruses gets active they will out breaks the blisters. First out break of blisters starts one to two weeks after the activation and collapse few weeks later. Afterward whenever the viruses will activate blisters will return. Symptom of out breaking is unpleasant tingling feeling in the skin; subsequently number of fluid filled blisters will appear on the skin. Later on scab will cover all the sores and will fall within 8 to 10 days. Until scab covers the sores viruses spreads infection continuously.

Therefore, to avoid the infection by the viruses avoid direct contact with the sores. If such contact occurs, viruses will spread the infection every part of the body that includes fingers and genital organs. You have to wash your hands regularly particularly when you touch lips. Picking at the sores need to be avoided, as this will lead in spreading the viruses as well as it will result in bacterial infection of the sores. To avoid the reactivation of the viruses body need to healthy and therefore try to include healthy food in your regular diet. Key to avoid the infection is varied diet, regular exercise and enough sleep.

Major triggering that activates the viruses is fever, long exposure to sunlight, pregnancy, and menstruation. However, triggering varies from person to person. Therefore, while going out apply sunscreen lotion to the body and also consume healthy and nutritive food. This will help you in shielding the body from infection and reactivation.

Cold sores or fever like blisters with outbreaks caused by viruses that attack the body. These viruses are also called as herpes simplex viruses. Once the body is attacked with these viruses, it is hard to get rid of them. Therefore, one has to try different remedies to keep the body shielded from these viruses. Viruses attack the area around mouth and nervous system of the body. The viruses are dormant in the body and when triggered activates them. Blisters around the mouth can observe presence of the viruses. Blisters are painful and watery and can occur on genital areas and mucous membranes.

There are certain remedies that keep the viruses in inactive states and the person suffering with the cold sores avoid triggering of the sores. Many of the times, viruses can be triggered in the pregnancy or menstruation period. This period is of the hormonal changes and there is lot of possibility of triggering the hormonally induced out break of cold sores.

Another reason of out breaking of the cold sores is sunlight. More exposure of the skin to the sunlight can out break the blisters. Sunburns also cause the cold sores or blisters. Therefore, while going outside one has to apply the sunscreen lotion on the lips, as they are the most sensitive. This is the easy remedy to control the cold sores. Cold and wind also triggers the blisters and hence this needs the same precautionary measure.

Person suffering with cold and flue has more chances of out breaking of the cold sores. In the flue or cold the resistance capacity of the body decreases and easily gets affected by the viruses. Another reason of virus triggering is the stress. Stress weakens the immune system of the body and the person may become vulnerable to any viruses that prowl around. However, one cannot avoid stress but can limit its bad effects on the body.

To shield your body from these viruses try to get proper amount of sleep. Adequate amount of sleep keeps the person stronger and healthier than the person who is getting less sleep. This is one of the precautionary measures to reduce the infection of the viruses. Along with sleep, the body needs to be supplemented with nutrition. Proper nutrition supplement and adequate amount of protein are helpful in healing process. Along with nutrition and proteins, body also needs the supplement of antioxidants and vitamins.

Antioxidants are especially important to keep body healthy and guarding off cold sores. Vitamin B deficient peoples frequently suffer with the out breaks. Amino acids and lysine are also helpful to shield the body from cold sores. (see our lysine article) Nevertheless, one has to intake these supplements under recommendation of doctors as over dose can affect the body. Best way to protect you from the cold sores is to stay calm and composed.

A cold sore will generally affect mouth and the nose. Cold sores are a viral infection and it causes small sores on the mouth nose and other parts of the body. The herpes simplex type 1 is responsible for the infection of the mouth and nose.

It infects the lower part of the nose or sometimes the infection also reaches in the nose. In the nose it affects generally the nostrils. In these disease sores are developed on the skin bellow nose and also inside the nose. These sores are small in size however they grow in the form of groups and therefore they can be painful. The skin where the infection occurs becomes red and appears as inflated. After some time of occurrence of the infection the sores grow in size and finally they burst i.e. they break open and dispose out a clear fluid. This may happen because of mechanical stress as touching with the finger etc. When this happens a curst is developed in the area of the infection.

However after this, the sores disappear themselves without doing anything. Therefore they may disappear even without the need to take medication.

As the sores appear in groups containing a large number of sores, the nose becomes very painful. They also cause itching. If they appear bellow the nose they are visible externally and therefore they cause embarrassment for the patient.

The infection occurs when the patient comes in to contact with the germs i.e. the herpes. They spread from the infected person to the other people. This happens when they sneeze or through the common use of things like towels, napkins, etc. it also occurs because of the touching the sores with the hand or other body parts.

Once the virus known as the herpes simplex enters the body of the patient it may remain inactive for sometime. However due to some stimulus as cold or some other chemical stimulus also it may give rise to the sores on the skin. Therefore they occur commonly during the cold season and so called cold sores.

They can occur to people of any age from children to adults. However, in some 20 to 40% people though the herpes enters their body it remains inactive. It is not able to grow and create the symptoms of cold sores in them.
The remaining ones show the symptoms of the infection externally.

The complete cure from the infection is not possible. The virus remains in the body for ever though it may become inactive for sometime because of the cure methods. Therefore the cold sores occur frequently throughout the life of the patients.

The sore disappear naturally after their occurrence. This takes a time of about two weeks. Many types of creams and antiviral medicines are available in the market. However these will only reduce the time of healing by about 3 to 4 days. However they give immediate from the pain that these sores cause.

Using the natural substances as the lysine, zinc vitamin c etc can help in reducing their occurrence. In addition to this it has been found that the amino acid Arginine is rerqired by the virus for their growth and therefore the patients should avoid eating foods containing Arginine.

Also it is important that though the sores may cause itching they should never be scratched or they will spread to the nearby region