Why It Appears, How to Get Rid of It and What Not to Do

The cold weath­er came and many of us got cold sores. Why does a cold appear on the lips, is it pos­si­ble to get rid of her­pes for­ev­er, how does infec­tion occur and what should not be done with her­pes? We learned from doc­tors and share with you!

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Why does herpes appear?

Accord­ing to WHO experts, more than 95% of the world’s pop­u­la­tion is infect­ed with the her­pes virus. In fact, almost all of us have it. But not every­one gets sick. It all depends on your gen­er­al health. If the body is weak­ened by fre­quent colds, endocrine dis­eases, vit­a­min defi­cien­cies, gas­troin­testi­nal dis­or­ders or stress, any draft will wake up the virus. And the rash will reap­pear. Fre­quent exac­er­ba­tions of her­pes can also be caused genet­i­cal­ly. They are asso­ci­at­ed with the “break­down” of antivi­ral immu­ni­ty, which is inher­it­ed.

How does herpes infection occur?

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Most­ly by con­tact. Shared uten­sils, hand­shakes, inti­ma­cy, kisses—anything. It is enough for a sick per­son to touch his lips once, on which the crusts from rash­es have not yet com­plete­ly dried up (and after that do not wash his hands), and he will leave viral par­ti­cles on all objects that he touch­es.

The her­pes virus is quite tena­cious. It tol­er­ates tem­per­a­ture extremes and UV radi­a­tion well. It is very easy to pick it up in pub­lic places. For exam­ple, if it gets on met­al, wood­en and oth­er sur­faces (as well as ban­knotes), it can live for 2 hours. On damp objects and wet fab­rics (for exam­ple, a tow­el) — up to 6 hours.

When there is a rash, the like­li­hood of infec­tion is high­est. But even in a latent form, her­pes can be con­ta­gious, albeit to a much less­er extent. Trans­mis­sion of infec­tion can occur through invis­i­ble micro­trau­ma of the skin and mucous mem­branes.

Herpes symptoms

The infec­tion is usu­al­ly asymp­to­matic, but recurs after a dif­fer­ent time and man­i­fests itself dif­fer­ent­ly in every­one. So, for exam­ple, some­one does not have vis­i­ble her­pes, while some­one has it very strong­ly.

Her­pes usu­al­ly recurs in the infect­ed area. The first sign is local numb­ness of the skin, fol­lowed by indi­ca­tion and itch­ing. With­in a few hours after this, and some­times the next day, rash­es typ­i­cal of her­pes appear, sim­i­lar to small blis­ters.

Most often, her­pes occurs on the lips. Less often — in the nos­trils or on oth­er parts of the face, on the fin­gers, gen­i­tals or but­tocks.

Recur­rent her­pes can also cause com­pli­ca­tions such as corneal inflam­ma­tion. In this case, one-sided pain in the eyes, increased lacrima­tion, red­ness is man­i­fest­ed. There is a feel­ing as if an eye­lash is stuck in the eye or dust has got into it. In some cas­es, there are visu­al impair­ments, as well as increased pho­to­sen­si­tiv­i­ty.

Her­pes recur­rence can also cause facial stroke in adults if the case is neglect­ed. It is pre­ced­ed by pain in the ear region, fol­lowed by sag­ging of one cor­ner of the mouth, and the eyes may not close well, fol­lowed by dry­ness.

In par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult cas­es, her­pet­ic eczema occurs — this is a seri­ous dis­ease in which her­pes spreads from a small focus to the face. Usu­al­ly this dis­ease affects peo­ple with atopic der­mati­tis. Be atten­tive and care­ful! Her­pet­ic eczema can be life threat­en­ing if left untreat­ed or done incor­rect­ly!

How soon does herpes heal: herpes treatment

Her­pes heals on its own in a peri­od of sev­er­al days to three to four weeks. Var­i­ous med­ica­tions can “help” him in this — local action, or for oral admin­is­tra­tion.

Mild symp­toms of her­pes should not be treat­ed, but you will have to “quar­an­tine” because until the blis­ters heal, the infec­tion can be trans­mit­ted.

Is it possible to get rid of herpes forever?

Unfor­tu­nate­ly this is not pos­si­ble. Once in the body, the virus remains in the ner­vous sys­tem for life. Just for the time being, he “falls into hiber­na­tion.” And when immu­ni­ty is weak­ened, ill­ness­es, stress or oth­er adverse fac­tors, it wakes up and makes itself felt with rash­es on the skin and mucous mem­branes. There is cur­rent­ly no cure for her­pes com­plete­ly. All drugs only sup­press the repro­duc­tion of the virus, but do not remove viral DNA frag­ments from nerve cells.

In what cases should you go to the doctor?

If there is exten­sive blis­ter­ing of the skin and mucous mem­branes, fever and malaise, this is an occa­sion to urgent­ly go to the doc­tor. In addi­tion, you need to run to the hos­pi­tal when symp­toms of con­junc­tivi­tis, facial paral­y­sis, and lym­phadeni­tis appear.

Also remem­ber how often you get her­pes. If it recurs more than six times a year, it is nec­es­sary to dis­cuss its pre­ven­tion with your doc­tor.

What to do if herpes appears constantly?

If a “cold” on the lips appears no more than 3–4 times a year, there is noth­ing to wor­ry about. Most like­ly, there are no sys­temic fail­ures in the body. It is only impor­tant to learn how to quick­ly relieve exac­er­ba­tions. Antivi­ral oint­ments and creams will help in this. Dur­ing the relapse peri­od, use only indi­vid­ual dish­es, tow­els and oth­er per­son­al hygiene items. If exac­er­ba­tions occur more than 5 times a year, you should con­tact an immu­nol­o­gist. The task of the doc­tor is to bring the virus to a state of hiber­na­tion and at the same time elim­i­nate dis­or­ders of the immune sys­tem.

What not to do with herpes

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• Bide your time! Use an antivi­ral agent already when symp­toms-pre­cur­sors appear (Acy­clovir, Zovi­rax, Ger­pe­vir, etc.). Did you feel itch­ing, burn­ing or tin­gling in your lips? Act right there. There will be a chance to pre­vent the appear­ance of bub­bles.
• Cau­ter­ize the bub­bles with iodine or alco­hol. The mox­i­bus­tion virus will not be affect­ed in any way, but they can bring a skin burn.
• Apply oint­ment with your fin­ger. Touch­ing this fin­ger to anoth­er part of the body, you spread the infec­tion. Apply heal­ing oint­ment with a cot­ton swab.
• Paint lips. Oth­er­wise, lip­stick will become a source of infec­tion — and it will have to be thrown away.
• Kiss­ing and oral sex until the cold sore is com­plete­ly gone.