Tuesday, May 16, 2006

COLD SORES: Stage 5 - Open Sore

Cold Sores, Fever Blisters, Oral Herpes

This stage of cold sores is without a doubt the most painful. The most hideous. And the most contagious.
At this point with cold sores, all the cold sore vesicles break open and merge to form one humungous open, weeping cold sore.

Depending on the severity of your herpes simplex virus outbreak, the lymph glands under your jaw are probably enlarged and sore. If this is the case with you, quite likely your lymph glands will hurt when you move your head to look down toward your feet. Usually with cold sores, the enlarged lymph glands will be on the same side as your cold sore.

If your lymph glands are enlarged because of the cold sore, quite likely you will also have a fever - and will generally feel pretty punk. It may feel, at least in your head, very similar to flu symptoms - rather than a cold sore.

Taking whatever you take for a headache will help improve your comfort by also reducing this cold sore induced fever.

The weeping fluid from open cold sores is just teaming with newly cloned herpes virus, just looking for action. Getting this fluid on your fingers can easily spread the cold sore virus to another part of your own body or someone else's. If you have a cut on your finger and the cold sore virus gets in, you could get cold sores in that location. I've seen it and those that have cold sores on their fingers say they are worse than the lip. The tips of your fingers have a lot of nerves - which provides a very welcome home for the cold sore virus.

Even more dangerous, in my opinion, is spreading cold sores to the eyes. It is very easy to do and can cause permanent damage or blindness. There was a news story just the other day again about a lady who contracted cold sores in both her eyes. She didn't go blind from these cold sores, but her corneas were damaged. She stated that it was extremely painful each time she blinked or closed her eyes.

My favorite is to carry some babywipe type of product. The cold sore is irritating and you will want to dab at it occasionally. Use a baby wipe to dab and clean your cold sore every so often. Most brands of these contain some alcohol, which will help kill the virus - and protect the spread of cold sores. This is one of several helpful cold sore remedies.

Cold Sores

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