Those of you who don't know, I've been very sick over Christmas and New Year (and am only just starting to recover) which has brought out, as bad illness usually does with me, coldsores.
I went into work (because they're reluctant to give people time off, even with illnesses) with these, which are currently quite bad, and got so many stares it just got me more and more self-conscious and closer and closer to wanting to blurt out something. I didn't, but it did got me thinking. Seems not a lot of people around know what a coldsore really is, how it's transferred, or how to react to someone who has one. So as one of the people who carry this very very common virus around, and will do until I die, I thought I'd offer up a few well known and not so well known facts about living with this.
A coldsore is caused by a virus known as Herpes Simplex, and hopefully no-one's going 'ewww, herpes' because that's the kind of attitude I've had to deal with at work. In fact, if you've ever had chickenpox (and I'm betting that the majority of even the small population here have) then you've had, and are still carrying a close relative of the coldsore virus, Herpes Varicella-Zoster. Now, I'm going to focus on coldrores since that's the one I have, but Herpes Simplex can live and outbreak in more than just the two obvious places. It can live in your nose, in your eyes, on your fingers or even in your brainstem (it's this virus that's responsible for Encephalitis). There are also two types of Simplex Virus-type 1 and type 2, and it's impossible to be immune to them due to tie way they hide and trick your bodies defences. On the other hand it's also possible to be infected with one or both types and not show any symptoms at all. But still, if you don't have it consider yourself damn lucky.
I've had mine since I was little, I can't even remember when I had the first one. So it's really quite unfair and ignorant of people to treat me like they're afraid of me or I'm going to give them something just by them being nearby-although the staring and the muttering under their breath is worse. To put it bluntly, where mine is makes me one of the lucky ones-it can't travel up my nose into my brainstem, cause eye problems or be spread around by touch (if I had it on my finger). It only occurs once, or maybe twice a year when I'm ill. That means I have a generally good immune system. Some people get outbreaks far more often than that.
It's just noticeable because I haven't been paying attention to what I've been eating recently. Coffee, chocolate, nuts, wheat, oats and magnesium make it worse by feeding it what it uses to replicate-an amino acid called Arginine. Too much of that and well, that leads to worse (I know) and sometimes frequent (I've read) outbreaks.
An outbreak is the virus surfacing to shed more virus, and will usually start with a noticeble itch under the skin of where an outbreak is going to happen. That in mine anyway, is quickly Followed by the area that's going to be affected swelling up, which then becomes a blister. The blister then starts 'bursting' and weeping yellow fluid (note that the cracks are so small that the weeping is only noticeable if a tissue is wiped over the blisters) until there's no blister left, only yellow skin, and only after all that does it start to scab over so the damage can heal
Now, I've heard that some people find them painful but personally I just find them annoying, they're like having a scab that just will not stop itching, ever. But, unlike most normal scabs, I can't pull them off without increasing the risk of spreading the virus.
So, there's the why and the what of the appearance, now for the how. How it's spread and how I cope.
It's spread by skin to skin contact, but that doesn't mean that it can only be passed via something as intimate as a kiss. It can also be passed on by sharing drinks bottles, straws- glasses, cutlery and if the persons concerned are very young, something like sharing a saliva covered toy or dummy. Of course, doing daft things like touching another persons sore and then touching your own lip will spread it too..
So coping is simply being smart. It might seem selfish but someone who doesn't want to share say a bottle or a straw for something might actually have your best interests at heart.
Unfortunately, apart from not sharing or doing anything that could possibly spread it, there's not much else I can do. Can't even cover it in makeup-because lipstuck will just spread it around and makeup never really agreed with my skin anyway.
I have found this wonderful anti-biotic and anti-viral honey however, that stops the itching and curbs the virus, ar well as the tannin off pure teabags that does the same. Also, I can't use Zovirax anymore, as it has no effect whatsoever on mine.
So please if you do see someone with a coldsore or two (or moqe
) don't assume they got it by doing something dodgy or explicit, it's actually more likely they got it in childhood, like I did. Also if you see anyone harrassing someone with it, give them a slap for being an uneducated moron from ne.Any questions?