December 2018 – Stop Cold Sores

Cold Sores – Treatment vs. Prevention

So you feel a cold sore outbreak coming (only those of us who have suffered know that “tingly” feeling) and you decide to do some online research. The results…

The treatments tend to fall into the following types, home remedies, creams, ointments, numbing lotions and just waiting for them to heal. Well let’s look at three of the results:

Valacyclovir is a prescription drug used to treat cold sores around the mouth. It claims to reduce the severity and length of cold sore outbreaks. It costs about $25 per month (plus the cost of a doctors visit) and comes with the following side effects.
Abreva is a cream that claims to reduce the length time it takes to heal a cold sore up to 25%. It comes in a (~~small~~ really tiny tube 0.07 ounce) that costs about $16.99 at your local Wall-Mart.
LED (low intensity laser) is a treatment that claims to reduce both the time to heal and the occurrence frequency of cold sore outbreaks. The products range in price between $90 – $299 and must be carried with you so that when you get that “tingly” feeling you immediately begin to use it to prevent an outbreak.

All of these were listed on the first page when searching. Let me be honest with you, over the years I have gone deep into the google listings (20+ pages) looking for ANYONE who claimed to be able to PREVENT cold sores rather than treat an outbreak. I could not find a single one, that had a viable solution.

I started my journey of a way/product to prevent cold sores (in the 70’s) before ANY of the three options above were around. As a matter of fact the internet wasn’t even around. When I finally discovered how to prevent outbreaks with a tiny inexpensive capsule (non prescription for pennies a day) that could be taken with dinner daily (in the 90’s), these products were not available.

A typical outbreak lasts 7-10 days, and the most optimistic of the top three treatment claims to reduce healing time from 7-10 days to 4-5 days. I don’t know about you but when I suffered from embarrassing cold sores, reducing the time I had to try and cover them up was better than nothing but NOT a solution.

In next weeks post we will begin to review my journey into finding a fool-proof way to prevent 100% of cold sore outbreaks. We will discuss the culprit, the HSV-1 virus and why it is so hard to find a solution to problem that 67% of the population has by age 50.

I hope you find this information both helpful and informative, and discover that it is possible to prevent cold sore outbreaks.

Myths, Lies, and Half-truths

~~There are no cures for cold sores.~~ Myth
~~You cannot prevent cold sores only treat them when you get one.~~ Lie
~~If there were a way to prevent cold sores a drug company would patent it and make a fortune selling it as a prescription.~~ Half-truth

In this post I want to address the Myths, Lies and Half-truths surrounding cold sores and the cause of cold sores, the HSV-1 virus.

The Myth
According to WebMD, “Despite the name (cold sore), that isn’t what causes them. The herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) is most often the cause. You get it from contact with an infected person’s skin or body fluids. (If you have it, chances are you picked it up when you were a child. It most likely came from direct contact with someone who had it, like getting kissed (as a baby) by an adult with the virus.) Between outbreaks, HSV-1 hides inside nerve cells, so it’s never completely cured.” Ironically, if you read the web page thoroughly you will see the following “This content is selected and controlled by WebMD’s editorial staff and is supported by Abreva (owned by Glaxo-Smith Kline a major pharmaceutical company).

The facts are that as early as 1975, Science magazine reported that there was a product that inactivated lipid containing viruses (such as HSV-1). So what does that “inactivation” mean to you and me… If the virus in inactivated it means we cannot have a cold sore outbreak. Practically speaking, if we cannot root out and and eliminate the HSV-1 virus from every cell in our body then the next best thing is to prevent (read cure) the outbreak of cold sores. This is possible.

The Lie
There are a number of triggers for someone having a cold sore outbreak and according to the “experts” we should just try and avoid the items on the following list:

1) Stress (please tell me how this is done)
2) Fatigue (right, like that is possible)
3) Cold weather Move to the south)
4) Too much sun (oops, not to far south)
5) Spicy foods (no more Mexican or Thai food)
6) Hormonal changes (stop aging, how)
7) Dental Trauma (I guess one should avoid getting cavities)
8) Weakened immune system (don’t get sick)

The fact is it is impossible to avoid any (let alone all of these triggers). But if we assume we could avoid all of these (and still wanted to live), what other things trigger cold sores? The fact is that you and I want to stop getting ugly, embarrassing cold sores while enjoying our lives. Is this possible, you bet it is.

The Half-truth
So if it’s possible to prevent cold sore outbreaks, why hasn’t some big pharmaceutical company patented it and run ads on TV telling us to go to our doctors and get a prescription for a drug called CSbegone? To receive a patent on a product (20 years of protection to sell that product exclusively) in addition to other factors the product must have a novelty requirement. Novelty simply means the invention must be new. That is, it must differ from knowledge already existing in the public domain, prior patents, published applications, publications available to the public and items on sale.

For example, you and I could not get a patent to cure stinky feet with aspirin (if it worked). Why? Because aspirin is already a product available. Even though we may have discovered a new application for the use of aspirin, we could never receive a patent. So this means if a product now available to the public, were to be effective in preventing cold sores no one is going to invest the time and money to produce and market the product because in a matter of months they would have dozens of competitors selling their own version. They could not recoup the R&D, advertising, productions, etc. to make a profit?

It is my hope that you will find this information helpful, and yes it is possible to prevent cold sore outbreaks.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

This blog is about teaching you how you can stop suffering from ugly cold sores. Let me start by sharing my story.

My name is Dave Conley and I suffered from cold sores since I was in elementary school. Kids made fun of me (called me VD mouth). I was taken to the school office more than once in elementary school because they (teacher, nurse, etc.) thought I might be contagious. Throughout high school it was the same thing, every month or so I had another outbreak.

At the time I had no idea the cause and tried everything to get rid of them but was told that “you will just have to let them run their course of 7-10 days” by the doctors. In my early twenties (the 1980’s) I began researching the cause and possible preventive measures. My hope was to reduce my number of outbreaks.

I tried Lysine, almonds, avoiding spicy foods, avoiding lip balms, etc. but nothing seemed to work. It was after many years of research (by the way this was before Google) that I came across a couple of scientists doing study on life extension, and a little known study done in Bowling Green, KY in 1983. The researchers and scientists had stumbled across a common compound that when ingested kills the HSV-1 virus that is responsible for cold sore outbreaks.

Fast forward 30 years of taking this product, I am free from cold sores outbreaks. It is my hope that you will find this information helpful, and you too can prevent cold sore outbreaks.