Mens & Womens Health

Cold sores, or fever blisters as they are sometimes called, are quite painful, uncomfortable, and embarrassing. If you have been afflicted in the past with cold sores, you are probably on the hunt for a trustworthy cold sore cure. It’s bad enough to have to deal with them once, but the particularly irritating aspect of cold sore affliction is that if you’ve dealt with them once, they are almost certain to recur. You definitely want to find out how to get rid of cold sores if you have them.

One of the worst things about cold sores is that, not only are they painful, unattractive, very contagious, and make simple daily tasks like speaking, singing along with hot new music, and eating more difficult - there is also a strong social stigma attached to cold sore outbreaks. This probably comes from the fact that the virus which causes cold sores is Herpes Simplex Virus Type-1, an alternate strain of the virus that causes the sexually transmitted disease Herpes. Even though cold sores, in the vast majority of cases, have nothing to do with sexual activity, there is still the stigma attached.

All of these bad aspects of cold sores - the ugliness, the social stigma, - make it even more attractive to find a cure for cold sores. There are a few homespun remedies that are effective in varying degrees in stopping a cold sore from spreading after it has begun. Another benefit of a number of these remedies is that they work hand in hand with stopping the progression of the cold sore and also offer some pain relief, as well. And you don’t need a personal trainer certification to know that you want your body to be as healthy as possible.

Using a Tea Bag - One thing you can do is to steep a tea bag in hot water for a few minutes (just like you would if you were steeping a cup of tea), and then hold the steeped tea bag to the cold sore like a compress. This can be repeated several times per day.

Use Ice - The first technique uses heat to soothe the cold sore, and the ice method goes to the opposite extreme. Pressing a cold compress with ice inside to the cold sore as soon as it begins to appear can, by many accounts, stop the cold sore from becoming a major outbreak.

Use Dietary Restrictions - To prevent cold sores in the first place, you could refrain from eating certain foods in your diet to keep cold sores from appearing initially. You should avoid high acid foods, and also caffeine. Therefore, this would mean cutting out your daily coffee. Also, choosing fresh, healthy foods over processed and packaged foods can make a big difference.

These remedies can definitely assist in preventing cold sores and make them better once they’ve begun to break out.