Cold Sores
Natural Remedies

Cold Sores - Editor's Choice

Over the years, Earth Clinic readers have sent us many reports about their treatments for Cold Sores. The editors at Earth Clinic consider the below posts to be some of the most helpful and informative and have named them 'Editor's Choice'. We hope that you will find this useful.

Acetone

Posted by Jennifer (San Francisco) on 11/24/2020
★★★★★

Acetone for cold sores works. I also have used ice directly early on for a few hours off and on and that helps too.

However, the MOST important thing you can do to PREVENT cold sores is to NEVER consume ANY artificial sweeteners, which all contain aspartame, including almost any type of gum these days, diet sodas, diet drinks of ANY form, etc, as the aspartame WAKES the virus and activates cold sores. I have not had a cold sore in many years as a result of avoiding aspartame. Hope this helps someone.


L-Lysine

Posted by Bethany H. (San Diego, Ca) on 02/10/2019
★★★★★

L-lysine for cold sores WORKS!!!

My mom, sisters and I suffer from cold sores- or at least we used to, because we discovered that taking L-lysine stops, actually STOPS cold sores in their tracks. As soon as you feel that “is that a cold sore funny sore feeling “ on your lip or around lips area, start taking L-lysine immediately! Take 1000 mg of L-lysine two to three times a day. So immediately effective and we all carry in our purse and on trips so we have immediate help in case it strikes while you're out and about. I've spent so much money or various cold sore lip creams but this is the best ever! L-lysine.


Colloidal Silver

Posted by Art (California ) on 10/19/2018 2119 posts
★★★★★

A friend of mine recently got a cold sore / herpes sore on her upper and lower lip. She tried colloidal silver applying twice a day and both sores were gone in three days or less. I told her next time to apply a CS wetted cotton ball and tape it to her lip area so the silver can have plenty of time and material to do its job in contact with the sore. On the second day she told me she thought it was reversing because she felt much less "pressure" at the location of the sore. By the end of the second day, the sore was obviously diminished!

Art


Lemon Balm

Posted by Cris01us (Honolulu) on 07/07/2017
★★★★★

So I have tried many many things for the past three years to deal with embarrassing cold sores and surprisingly most are listed on this site and most do in fact work to some degree or another.

For instance, on a 1-10 scale with 10 being awesome: 1. ACV applied (3) 2. Acetone applied (6) 3. Ice applied (4) 4. L-Lysine taken (5) 5. Earwax applied (7) (hey when your desperate you'll try anything! ) 6. Zinc taken (3) 7. Lemon Balm (9)!!! 8. Organic Oregano Oil applied (7) (if the right strength is applied enough) 9. Tea Tree Oil applied (5) 10. Tea bag applied (2)

If you are reading this and looking for some relief then you have probably read a ton of others too, and what you should have noticed by now is that no one thing by itself is probably going to be a silver bullet. What I have found that works for me is: Lemon Balm oil (1oz bottle with dropper) apply to q-tip and hold that on the spot for 1-5 minutes at a time, do as often as needed through out the day. If done at the very first sign this is amazing with helping slow everything down. Then up the L-lysine to 3000mg (1000 each dose). Drink plenty of water - the body needs it! Eat healthy (I even fasted for a day once and it helped).

Take a zinc supplement and make sure your getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs and plenty of rest. I also have tried BHT and I think it helps....but that's not natural and is very controversial in this kind of community.

Mistakes: too strong of OOO - I burned my lip and it took as long to heal as it would have the cold sore (but it worked the sores were gone the next day)! . Topical Zinc Sulfate - also burns. TTO applied too often - burns and stops working after a while. Really in most mistakes it comes down to overdoing it. I know we all want it gone yesterday but NOTHING is going to do that so have a little patience. Best of luck!


Zinc

Posted by Canadiandave (Bc) on 01/28/2017 15 posts
★★★★☆

I developed an unusual itchy red rash all over my mouth after visiting a certain restaurant, but I could have had a problem for a while. I developed a sore on the corner of each mouth only once in the 2 years since, but get the itching and redness almost every day. I used LED lights to be environmental, but had to switch back, because it made the problem much worse. So as you can see, I did not have an advanced or long term problem, but it was reduced greatly with zinc.

I read that many people with fatigue have a copper/zinc imbalance, and I thought I'd give it a try. It's only been 10 days, and no results yet on the fatigue, but the itching is virtually gone already!

This research also says that people with too high copper/too low zinc have viral problems, as zinc kills viruses in the body, with copper being better against bacteria.

I hope that's true. Not very exciting, but cleaning up my smile is a relief!


Lysine, Vitamin C and Coconut Oil

Posted by Mia (Mi, Fl) on 03/24/2015
★★★★★

I didn't have any acetone to use this time and I really didn't like using it at all so I used 4,000 mg of Lysine spread out through the day, 3,000 mg of Vit C spread out through the day, and I dabbed coconut oil on the sore twice.

In ONE DAY, it was dried up with barely a tiny scab left over and this thing had seven different bubbles and felt like my lip was really ready to swell up.

I will stick with remedy FOREVER.



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