For most of your life, the cold sore virus is asleep and not causing any trouble. In fact, a third of the people infected will never get a cold sore. The other two-thirds will get at least one a year - often more.
How to prevent and treat fever blister, cold sores, and oral herpes
- Stress hurts your immune system. Studies have shown that mild stress that appears for a brief period of time actually stimulates the immune system. This is because the body’s fight or flight system is activated, and the immune system is expecting some sort of bruising or tearing and is waiting ready. However, this is just true for short bursts of stress. Prolonged stress has been shown to have a very detrimental effect on the immune system and the concentration of white blood cells.
- Sunlight stimulates the virus. While it is not known exactly why this is, for a lot of people, sunlight annoys the skin and triggers the virus to start multiplying. The solution to this is of course to lessen your exposure to UV-light by not staying out too long and to wear a high grade sun proof.
- Proper diet strengthens the immune system. Some guidelines to what and how you should eat is that you should always strive for unprocessed food. The more unprocessed it is, the more micro nutrients it usually contains along with healthy fibers. Another major guideline is that you should strive to diversify your meals. Try to eat food from as many different sources as you can.
- Regular exercise stimulates the immune system. You need at least one hour exercise per day. If you have time and space in your schedule then you should do even more. The long term benefits of exercise have been proven over and over again, and the positive effects it has on the herpes blister frequency is just the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t really matter what type you choose, but if you’re only going to do one type of exercise, then I would recommend some sort of cardiovascular training.
- Enough Sleep strengthens the immune system. A good 8 hours sleep will help your body repairs itself, and is actually one of the periods where the immune system is the most active. This is also why people who are sick tend to sleep more; because the body feels sick it wants to put it self to sleep so that it can repair itself. Studies have shown that people that are sleep deprived tend to have a lowered immune defense system, and this is why it is so important to get proper sleep. Proper sleep includes hours in a calm, dark area without any disturbances such as leaking light from the outside, music or other noise.
- Keeping the fever blister clean a must for fast healing. There is no secret that your body knows how to get rid of cold sores. One way your body does this is by creating a thick fluid to wash away as much of the new oral herpes virus as possible.
- Fast healing of a cold sore ulcer. Warm black tea bags are one of the wonderful methods to treat cold cores. They are cheap and convenient. Tea also provides micro-nutrients that aid in cell protection and repair. Discard each tea bag after use. Don’t use ice. Ice is great to reduce swelling and pain. But it greatly slows the healing process of an open wound.
