The Causes of Cold Sores
To be able to prevent and contain the outbreak of cold sores on your lips and
mouth, it would be helpful to understand what causes cold sores.
The herpes virus, which is dormant in just about everyone from childhood,
becomes active and this results in the small red blisters, we call fever blisters
and cold sores.
This is the same family of viruses that cause the dreaded genital
herpes. The strain that causes the cold sores is the herpes simplex type 1,
whereas its brother type 2 is responsible for the genital herpes
outbreaks.
The virus, when it has erupted into a cold sore is very contagious, so any
contact with a person that has active cold sores would trigger an outbreak on your
body, and touching, can even create genital herpes, or eye infections, when you
touch yourself on your own body.
So why does the virus all of a sudden become active out of the blue.
It has a lot to do with the state of your bodies' immune system. Whilst the
virus is lying dormant, a strong immune system prevents it from multiplying and
attacking us, as there are sufficient protective cells to contain it. Then when
conditions change, and your cells have their hands full containing other attacks,
there is a lea way for his virus to multiply as well.
Should the conditions surrounding you change, these might be more conducive for
the virus to thrive as well, and it will then also propagate and cause the cold
sores.
So what weakens the immune system, to give the virus a foothold? It can be
many things but in winter especially, the body is fighting off the numerous cold
and flu attacks, and using its resources to cope with such. This leaves less
resources to contain the dormant viruses in your body. This is why it is so
important to take extra vitamins and minerals to assist the body during this
time.
Dealing with stress on a continuous basis also drains the resources the body has
available. You will use up more vitamin B during stress, and unless you supplement
this in some way, there will be a weakness, that the virus can exploit.
An amino acid called Arginine aids the growth of the virus as well. This is
found in foodstuff as diverse as chocolate, coffee, nuts, peas and dairy
products.
Direct infection should be avoided. Do not share personal items with others, and
maintain the highest level of hygiene.
All in all , try and figure out what circumstances trigger your outbreaks to
determine what causes cold sores with you. Knowing the above about the causes of
cold sores, you know what specifically could be the problem in your case and act
accordingly.
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