Fools Gold…

I mentioned in my previous post that in 1993 my cold sore prevention / cure journey brought me to a possible solution, the amino acid Lysine. Let me give you some background…

It was 1993 that I started weight training, and as an ectomorph body type (ie. skinny) thought that supplements might help me gain weight. An amino acid called Arginine was purported to increase HGH (growth hormones) if taken at night on an empty stomach. I started my supplementation with it every night on an empty stomach. After a number of months I started to see the effects of taking Arginine as a supplement. Unfortunately, it was not the result I was looking for… MORE COLD SORE OUTBREAKS.

In trying to discover why, I came across this study on the “Relation of arginine-lysine antagonism to herpes simplex growth in tissue culture” published in 1981. The study states that an arginine deficiency suppressed the replication (growth) of the cold sore virus (Herpes HSV-1), and that the amino acid Lysine antagonized (worked against) the virus promoting activity of Arginine.

The theory was that if one limited the amount of Arginine rich foods you ate (things like nuts, chocolate, oats and breads) AND took 1,000 mg of Lysine daily then cold sore outbreaks could be prevented or drastically reduced. Well I started taking Lysine supplements daily (500 mg with each meal) and guess what… I still got cold sores. So I increased the dose to 1,000 mg with each meal, still got cold sores. The thought of giving up peanut butter (nuts), sandwiches (wheat in bread), oatmeal (oats), and chocolate were not appealing.

Now if I Google “Lysine & cold sores” I get about 400,000 hits, with the majority touting Lysine as a cure. My experience is that Lysine may help some people but most people (myself included) have found its use as a foolproof method of preventing cold sore outbreaks the equivalent of Fools Gold.

I continued my research and discovered another product / person who claimed they could stop me from getting cold sores… this is someone I doubt any of you have ever heard of but his books are probably in your local library. I will discuss him and his cure next week.

Let me assure you be that you do not have to suffer from embarrassing cold sores. I haven’t had one in over 20 years.