Cold Sores or Cooties — You Decide

What do chocolate, sunshine, and stress have in common?

They — along with many other things — can all trigger cold sores.

Some people can go years without experiencing more than one flare-up. But unfortunately, a trigger can unexpectedly end that streak— and usually at the least opportune moment (think picture day, prom, an important presentation at work, or your high school reunion).

Cold sores (some call them fever blisters) are caused by the herpes simplex one virus (HSV1), a variation of which (HSV2) is responsible for genital herpes previously discussed on my blog.

With cold sores, however, the treatment is different. In my experience, Antimonium crud 6 every three hours for two to three days has consistently worked best. Frankly, it’s pretty much a slam dunk.

But as we discussed last week, in homeopathy there is usually more than one way to skin a cat. If the cold sores are sun-induced, then in addition to the Ant crud protocol, I would add Natrum muriaticum 6 twice a day. (Nat mur is for people who are super sensitive to the sun.)

Alternatively, I also like Rhus tox 30, but my favorite go-to is Antimonium crud.

I’m reminded of the story of one mom whose teenage son suffered from cold sores. Sometimes, they were ushered in as he caught a cold, or sometimes, they were a result of his bingeing chocolate or junk food. His mom was certainly eager to help him with homeopathy.

However, when she realized that her son’s primary motivation was that his girlfriend wouldn’t kiss him while he had a cold sore, Mom thought about stepping back and letting it heal sloooowly.

Between you and me, Mom admittedly wasn’t fond of the idea that he had started smooching, so we toyed with the idea of letting the girls at school just think he had cooties!

But considering cold sores are painful, as well as unsightly, in the end, Mom couldn’t let her boy suffer. She gave him the Antimonium crud and within a couple of days, it was gone. (And so were the cooties that might have kept the young girls at bay.)

Now, don’t get me wrong. His cold sores were not “cured” after this first treatment. But each time another one developed, she gave him the Ant crud again. And each time, we assume that the remedy goes deeper.

Each subsequent cold sore may have looked just as bad and felt just as tingly and uncomfortable, but the flare-up would last a shorter amount of time and would not recur as quickly.

Now her son gets a cold sore maybe once a year, rather than every two months!

That’s how we want to set our expectations with cold sores.

We can count on homeopathy to lessen their frequency and duration so that they become inconsequential — just a blip on the radar of life…perhaps assigning them to every few years instead of every month.

But, as always, I’ll defer to your parental judgment as to whether you want to share this solution with your kissable teenagers. Sometimes, being young and beautiful can be a dangerous thing. An occasional case of the cooties might not be all that bad!

Warmly,

P.S. Issues of the skin — and their corresponding homeopathic protocols — are discussed in my course, Skin: The Ugly Truth: Safe, Effective Treatment of Skin Ailments, Chronic or Acute, with Homeopathy.

This blog post taught you how to address cold sores, but I encourage you to continue your education. Learn as much as you can about other skin ailments. At the very least, click through to the course page and sign up for a free infographic listing homeopathic remedies for 15 of the most common skin conditions.

Even if you don’t have a skin condition at the moment, it’s wise to be prepared when one unexpectedly strikes!