Cold Sore Symptoms

With any slight skin change, or pimple, people fear that they are about to get cold sore. Especially in winter, when conditions are somewhat harsher, the fear of a cold sore onslaught is apparent as soon as anything out of the ordinary is felt on the skin.

Whether it is a cold sore forming or not, is unfortunately not as easy to determine as might be desired. The symptoms for cold sores seem to vary somewhat, especially at different stages of their development.

Initially you may feel a slight unevenness, accompanied by a sort of tingling or mild burning sensation. This can easily be confused with a scrape or such like and is not a clear symptom.

By the time you are sure of what you have, you can quite clearly see the formation of the cold sores. The blisters will be very visible, or the red itchy blotches are starting to appear.

At this stage, all you can do is prevent a worsening of the infection. When you are sure that the skin abnormality is in fact an outbreak of cold sores, you need to be aware that if you do nothing, the infection will spread to greater area, and become worse before becoming better.

Left to its own devices, the cold sores should heal and disappear in a few weeks. With the correct intervention, you can however stop the cold sores in their tracks, and drastically reduce the time until your skin has healed.

You have the option of seeing a doctor, who will likely prescribe some ointment, or try one of the many home remedies. A lot of people have achieved tremendous results with old wives type of treatments, which in a lot of cases have proven to be as     effective as the bought medicine.

A word of warning though. Should you not identify your cold sore infection correctly on time, it may sometimes spread to more dangerous places. Should your eyes become scratchy and sore, or a yellowish pus form in the blisters, you need to seek professional medical help. Permanent eye damage can occur if they are infected. A pussy discharge is also a sign of a bacterial infection having combined with your sores, and need to be treated effectively.

SSo the message is, if you can definitely determine that you have cold sores, do something about them. You are able to effectively reduce your suffering by identifying the cold sore symptoms timeously.