whats a cold sore?

Answer 1

Cold sores are caused by a virus (it's a Herpes virus, but so is Chicken Pox and Shingles). Once you have a cold sore, the virus is in your system forever. You can expect cold sores to pop up in the same spot. There are different triggers, including sunburn, stress, acids such as tomatoes and citrus, illness with fever, or even menstruation.

Cold sores are most commonly found on the lips, either inside or outside. They can travel to other parts of the face (I have an uncle who used to get one on his nose every winter, which earned him the nickname "Rudolph"). Be careful if one pops up in the eye because it can do serious damage, even causing blindness. They can even appear on the hands, although that's much less common. Cold sores can spread from one person to another simply by touching an open sore, so don't share glasses, towels, razors, etc.

A cold sore starts with a tingling. If you put ice on it immediately, you might be able to stop the eruption. The tingle usually begins a day or two before it turns into a cold sore. Small blisters will appear, all grouped together, and it starts to burn. The blisters are filled with fluid - be careful about washing your hands at this stage, because this is very contagious. The blisters eventually start to crust over and form a large scab. Within one to two weeks it will disappear without a scar.

You can do a few things to treat cold sores. First, ice at the first tingle may prevent it. It sounds goofy, but I also do breathing exercises and I imagine my body fighting off the cold sore with little flame throwers. It works for me. There are a number of products on the market that can be used to treat the sores. Abreva is a cream and can shorten the time you have the sore, although I haven't had much luck with it. Zilactin is a gel that dries in a shield over the sore. It burns like crazy when you first put it on, and I don't like the way it gets all white and goopy as the day goes on. Carmex keeps it soft and soothes the itch, but doesn't do much to heal it. If you have a very bad cold sore, you can get prescription ointments or even pills (Zovirax). They work amazingly well, especially the pills. I wish I'd known about the pills when I had five cold sores on my bottom lip at the same time. Instead, I was only given the prescription cream, which did help heal them faster.

Cold sores are different from canker sores, which are single small blisters on the inside of your cheek or lip.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

2

Answer 4

Here's some quick and easy info for you.

http://www.animated-teeth.com/cold_sores/t1_cold_sores.htm

Answer 5

Herpes simplex virus

Answer 6

a form of herpes