Do you ever get these painful sum bitches? My mother's had them ever since she was 21, and I've had them ever since I was about 6. In this family, once you've had the chicken pox you are going to time and again break out in one of three things: cold sores, canker sores or shingles, my sister and grandmother have shingles, my brother gets canker sores, my mom, my oldest sister and I all get the cold sores. And anybody who's never had them does NOT get how much they hurt and burn and itch and you can't touch them or they'll spread. Can't nothing break them out like stress and we've always got plenty of that. Of course despite all the Abreeva ads on TV, it's not something to bring up in mixed company because there are still plenty of idiots who think you only get them one way. If they could ever come up with a cure for this, I would be VERY happy.

Nah.

Not something I've ever had to deal with, thank heavens. They always look damn painful to me.

Bluesmama wrote:

Not something I've ever had to deal with, thank heavens. They always look damn painful to me.

Oh trust me, THEY ARE.

Shale wrote:

Cold sore is a misleading name, probably because they manifest sometimes during colds or fever. They are caused by a herpes simplex virus and do lay dormant until some stress activates them.

I have had them but haven't had an outbreak for some years. I have seen the ads for Abreva but don't know if it actually has an anti-viral like Zovirax (Acyclovir), which I have used and it worked really fast. I think it requires a script.

So far I have escaped having them on my genitals - Lucky, considering the '70s.

Yeah, thank God for small favors. I've tried just about everything imaginable for these things, we get the prescription stuff, I think it's Acyclovir, that white stuff in a tube?, also Lip-ex lip balm which by now is about impossible to find, Carmex, camphor-phenique, peroxide, a generic RX cold sore treatment ointment, and also I've read that high vitamin diets help so that's usually when I start swallowing anything with large amounts of vitamin C in it.