A cold sore is the common name for orolabial herpes. An ugly term for what sufferers find to be an ugly and unsightly blemish that generally occurs on or near the lips. Before you can treat a cold sore, it’s important to know exactly what a cold sore is, and what types of treatments there are out there. Knowledge is power, and the power to get rid of a cold sore quickly is based in knowing as much as possible about the sore. Once this knowledge is laid out, the treatment that works best for you and for most sufferers is easily found.

Cold sores are an infection that sprout up from time to time whenever the herpes simplex virus contacts an abrasion of the mouth. Basically a cut or abrasion in the mouth interacts with a virus in the blood stream and manifests itself in the form of a cold sore. Cold sores can be quite painful and unsightly. The first time you get one it can be an unwanted and painful surprise. My child came home from school with a cold sore and it was particularly disturbing to know that he was in pain. Naturally I wanted to find the best most effective treatment for him to use.

Usually cold sores will go away on their own in two weeks or so. Treatments range from applying topical creams to doing nothing. Many people swear by using salves such as petroleum jelly or other lip balms in an effort to both relieve pain and keep the sore area moist, hoping that this will decrease the time of occurrence. In general, these solutions do little to counteract the time of the outbreak and server more to relieve pain that is caused by cracking and splitting as the sufferer articulate and moves their mouths. If you think about it, it makes sense. Adding petroleum jelly to the outside or surface of a cold sore would do little to actually heal or clear up the sore. Petroleum jelly is nothing more than cream that is a mixture of hydrocarbons; more of a protectant than a cure-all. It would be more useful as a skin to protect jelly, like paraffin, rather than as a cure for cold sores. It is applied on top of the cold sore and has no true curative properties.

Knowing this provides us the knowledge of what not to use but not what we should use to stop or shorten the duration of the cold sore outbreak. The first clue in finding a solution to this problem came from learning that the herpes virus and oxygen don’t like to mix. Actually, saying don’t like to mix is an understatement, they hate one another. Therefore it is possible to use oxygen and nutrients that help to create a greater degree of oxygen in the body to fight and help cure cold sore outbreaks. Let’s face it, your body has natural defenses that fight the outbreak even if the sufferer does nothing. Like I said earlier, the cold sore, on its own will go away after two weeks or so. This implies that your body is doing something on its own to help cure the problem. Finding a way to help your body, to bolster its immunity and ability to fight the infection would be a boon.

So, oxygen and herpes viruses are incompatible. How does a person raise their oxygen levels? How can a person increase the likelihood of not getting cold sores and decrease the time spent with an unsightly sore? The best way to increase oxygen supply in the blood stream is to buy and use a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Athletes and the super wealthy use this style of treatment. However, the normal sufferer may not have this capability. What else can be done? Diet is the answer in many cases. There are herbal supplements on the market, there are pills that claim to help, but the best, most effective way to increase the oxygen supply and to help ease the suffering one finds from cold sores is to vary the diet. Diet is the keystone for creating a healthy lifestyle and knowing the food stuffs that effectively increase oxygen supply in the bloodstream is key to stopping the cold sore cycle.