Best Cold Sore Treatment

Are you looking for the best cold sore treatment available? Often people feel embarrassed or suffer from the painful blisters and sores that cold sores create. Surprisingly, there are some very natural cold sore remedies that you can use to increase the healing time and get rid of the outbreak faster.

Prescription treatments can sometimes be expensive and not any more effective than some of the over the counter or natural remedies for cold sores.

While you cannot completely cure cold sores you can use these treatments to reduce how often you get them and their severity when they do appear. Natural home remedies may also stop the virus from being communicated from person to person or to other areas of the body.

We will cover some of these easy and simple cold sore remedies below.

Cold Sore Triggers - You will need to pay attention to what is going on with your body and be aware of what may cause you to have a cold sore outbreak. By paying close attention to when you have an outbreak, you can analyze the outbreaks and see if there is a pattern to when they occur or, more importantly, what might be setting them off. There are some very common catalysts, like: fevers, colds, stress, sun exposure, and menstruation. By monitoring what is causing your cold sores, you can now take steps to avoid your triggers. This is the most basic method for cold sore prevention. A healthy immune system is probably the best preventative measure you can take against a cold sore outbreak.

Clean and Dry - Keep the infected area clean and dry, avoid touching it very much and do not put makeup over the area because this may very well exacerbate the cold sore infection and cause a secondary infection to occur.

Toothbrush - It is important that you throw out your toothbrush when you feel a breakout beginning to occur (tingling sensation for example) and replace it with a new one--you will also have to throw out your brush once the blister has healed. By frequently replacing your tooth brush you will prevent reinfecting yourself.

Petroleum jelly - It is critical to protect the infected area and a think layer of petroleum jelly, or Vaseline, can promote healing as well as prevent the infected area from becoming excessively dry. Always either use a cotton swab to touch the area of thoroughly wash your hands to prevent infecting yourself in a different location.

Zinc - It has been shown that this mineral can bind the herpes virus and inhibit it from replicating and spreading. A zinc ointment that is water based can be liberally applied to the infection 3-5 times a day.

Lysine - Lysine is an amino acid that has been found to be an important treatment for cold sores. It arrests the development of cold sores. You can abbreviate and ease cold sore infections by eating foods rich in lysine, like dairy and potatoes, or you can take a supplement that contains the amino acid.

Arginine - It is important to avoid foods that contain this because it facilitates the growth and replication of the virus foods that have large amounts of it are: chocolate, beer, cola, grain cereals, peas, gelatin and peanuts.