How to Heal a Cold Sore Quickly

Abstract: A number of home remedies to get rid of cold sores using household herbs.

"Applying ice as soon as you feel that first tingle or itch will greatly reduce or delay the cold sore."

Detail: Cold sores are caused by the herpes simplex virus. The first infection may have the symptoms of swollen glands, a general feeling of being unwell and painful mouth ulcers.

Subsequent attacks occur mostly when the person is run down and they start with a tingling and itch on an area around the lips and nostrils, then tiny blisters appear. These blister break and weep. They then crust over and gradually disappear. Scratching will spread the virus and it can lead to a bacterial infection. The virus lives permanently in the nerve endings of many adults and children.Cold sores or Lip Herpes are contagious and care should be taken not to spread them to other parts of the body or to other people.

There are several cold sores home remedies that are known to be effective. Individuals who are prone to having cold sores should benefit from these natural cures. Treating cold sores should be taken seriously because they can cause a great deal of pain and discomfort.

The following may activate the virus:

Poor diet (even if only in the short term), dietary triggers such as chocolate and peanuts, mental or physical stress and fatigue, rubbing or chafing of the skin, illness, menstruation, depleted immunity or being 'run down'.

What you can do to treat cold sores

Knowing how to heal a cold sore quickly could be critically important if you have an important event in the near future.

There is no good time to have a cold sore. But why do cold sores always seem to happen at the very worst possible time?

Most often, cold sores occur because of physical or mental stress. Anxiety about an upcoming wedding, job interview, or other special event in your life will create stress. This stress will affect your pH balance, your hormones, and your immune system. Quite often illnesses such as cold and flu will also trigger a cold sore.

The herpes virus has an early warning system because it lives in your nerve cells. It can sense the slightest change in your temperature, stress levels, immune strength, and pH balance. When the conditions are favorable, the virus will head to the surface along your nerve fibers. Once at the surface, it will create new virus through its replication procedure thus producing the cold sore blister.

Your body knows how to heal a cold sore and will do so without any additional help or expensive cold sore treatment. Provided you do not get a secondary bacterial infection, the duration of your cold sore could be three to four weeks. If you are like me, you do not want to suffer that long. The quicker you heal your cold sore, the sooner you can get on with your life.

The cold sore virus needs three things to successfully replicate.

1. The virus needs plenty of arginine in the cell.

Arginine is a protein that is a critical building block for creating new herpes viruses. Lysine, another protein, has proven helpful in healing and preventing cold sores. Lysine does this by replacing some of the arginine in the cells, thus reducing or preventing the cells ability to create clones of the virus.

Basically, if the herpes virus gets to the surface and cannot find enough arginine in the cells, it often retreats. Many folks eat high lysine foods prior to or during a cold sore event, and avoid high arginine foods. For many folks, healing cold sores fast has been as simple as taking 1,000 milligrams to 3,000 milligrams of lysine in capsule supplements during an outbreak.

High lysine foods to eat are most meats and dairy products. Cheese, milk and yogurt are excellent. High arginine foods to avoid would be nuts, seeds, grains, and chocolate. You need to find your own personal balance here for healing cold sores.

2. The cold sore virus also needs a warm, moist environment.

Applying ice as soon as you feel that first tingle or itch will greatly reduce or delay the cold sore. Delaying the cold sore just a few days can get you through that important event. Any cold object will do - such as a can of Coke. The quicker, the better.

3. The herpes virus prefers an acid environment.

When in tip-top health, your pH balance should be around 7.4, which is slightly alkaline. When it drops below 7 on the pH scale, then your system is turning acid. Any stress, flu, colds, or too much sun will cause your body to move toward the acid side of normal. Avoid eating acid foods, such as tomatoes, citrus, carbonated soda or anything with vinegar if it will touch the cold sore area. You want nothing acid around that sore. Following this rule alone for healing a cold sore, along with continual cleaning of the wound with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, could cut your cold sore healing duration by 50%.

When treating cold sores it is important to boost the immune system - thus assisting the body to combat the virus.

• Cleanse your body of toxins so that the immune system is able to function at its best.
• Make sure that you eat a diet with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts and kohlrabi, garlic and onion, chili, ginger, sprouted seeds and beans and use cold pressed seed and vegetable oils. These all assist the immune system.
• Have plenty of garlic or use a garlic supplement or other natural antibiotic such as olive leaf extract or grapefruit seed extract.
• Take vitamin C (specifically calcium ascorbate - this is a non-acidifying vitamin C).
• Take a good multivitamin and mineral supplement.
• Manage your stress levels. Progressive relaxation and creative visualisation will be of assistance with stress anxiety or depression. There are also many herbal remedies that you can use to deal with stress.
• Direct application of lemon balm or extract is also one of the cold sores home remedies. Lemon balm or extract is effective in reducing the symptoms associated with these. Furthermore, lemon extract has properties that are known to help increase the healing process of blistered skin.
• Salt can also relieve and treat cold sores. Using your slightly moistened index finger, apply common fine salt directly on the cold sores by gently pressing on them for about 30 seconds. Pressing the fine salt on the affected area can help you treat the blisters more effectively. To achieve faster relief, follow up this procedure with application of aloe vera or any topical oil directly over the area.
• One of the commonly used cold sores home remedies is ice. Application is simple. Apply ice along the affected area. Treat them by slowly rubbing the ice for a few minutes to the infected area of the skin. Repeat application every hour.

The following herbs will support your immune system and should be taken in conjunction with the recommendations above:

echibacea, golden seal, cleavers, plantain, bayberry, burdock, huang qi, nettle, wormwood, calendula, myrrh, poke root, dandelion root, licorice

The following herbal formula will be most useful:

• 2 parts cleavers
• 2 parts echinacea
• 1 part oats
• 1 part poke root

Combine all the ingredients. Take 1 teaspoon of the herb blend and place into a suitable sized saucepan and add one cup of boiling water. Allow this to stand for 10-15 minutes. Strain out the herbs. Drink 1 cup of this tea twice per day.

The following can also be applied externally:

A lotion of echinacea with or without myrrh.

You can also try melissa oil, lavender oil, calendula tincture, myrrh tincture, and golden seal tincture.

Another choice for cold sores home remedies are tea bags. Simply apply the tea bag on blistered skin within several minutes. Repeat after one hour. Doing this on an hourly basis maximizes its effect. Modify this method by gently pressing the warm bag over the affected area or blisters for about half an hour.

Cold sores are an infection of the herpes simplex virus. They are an indication that the immune system is not functioning as effectively as it could. These are many things that you can do to deal with cold sores but the most important are to cleanse the body of toxins and boost immunity.

http://www.disabled-world.com/medical/alternative/homeremedies/cold-sore-remedies.php

Nutrition for Healthy Skin: Vitamin A, Zinc, Vitamin C

One of the biggest motivations to adopt a more nutritious diet is the desire to improve skin health. Many people of all ages struggle with skin conditions such as acne, rosacea, dry skin, wrinkles, and sun damage, among others. This can be very upsetting for those who have yet to find a solution to their problematic skin. While conventional medical professionals often discount the connection between skin health and nutrition, there is strong evidence to support the influence of our food choices on the health and vibrancy of our skin.

The consumption of certain vitamins, minerals, and other beneficial compounds in the diet is one of the most effective ways to treat skin conditions and improve the look and feel of one’s skin. There are several nutrients that are known to play a role in the proper growth and immunity of the skin, and many people have found that their skin health has dramatically improved after making purposeful changes to their daily diet. For example, Liz from the blog CaveGirlEats has a great post about how eating a traditional diet has improved her skin health. As her story suggests, making simple changes to your diet can have a significant impact on skin appearance in a short amount of time.

In this series, I will discuss how vitamins and minerals from a nutritious whole foods diet can treat acne, wrinkles, and other problem skin conditions.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A, or retinol, is one of the most widely acknowledged nutrients for healthy skin. Synthetic retinoids have been used as effective treatments for severe acne and psoriasis since the 1980s, demonstrating how useful vitamin A can be in treating problem skin. Vitamin A influences the physiology of the skin by promoting epidermal differentiation, modulating dermal growth factors, inhibiting sebaceous gland activity, and suppressing androgen formation. (1) As it promotes cell turnover in the skin, vitamin A is effective in preventing the formation of comedones that cause the most common forms of acne.

Lack of vitamin A causes the skin to become keratinized and scaly, and mucus secretion is suppressed. (2) Rough, dry skin is a common sign of vitamin A deficiency, which often first appears as rough, raised bumps on the back of the arms. (3) This condition is called hyperkeratosis pillaris, and is found in approximately 40% of adults. (4) Though dermatologists believe this is an inherited condition with no cure, I have successfully treated this condition in several patients by significantly increasing their consumption of vitamin A rich foods. While physicians prescribe synthetic retinoids to treat skin conditions including acne, eczema, psoriasis, cold sores, wounds, burns, sunburn, and ichthyosis, it is possible to obtain similar effects from consuming natural sources of pre-formed vitamin A. (5)

Preformed vitamin A, which is well absorbed by the body, can be found in a variety of traditional foods. The most vitamin A-rich foods are liver and cod liver oil, but other sources include kidney, cream and butter from pastured cows, and egg yolks from pastured chickens. I recommend using cod liver oil if you wish to supplement, as this provides a balance of vitamin A and vitamin D that will reduce the risk of overdosing on vitamin A. Eating liver once or twice per week is a great dietary strategy for those looking to reduce and even eliminate stubborn acne.

Zinc

Zinc is an essential mineral that is an imperative part of many physiological functions, including structure in certain proteins and enzymes, and regulation of gene expression. It plays a role in immune function, protein synthesis, wound healing, DNA synthesis, and cell division. (6) In skin, zinc assists in the proper structure of proteins and cell membranes, improves wound healing,  has anti-inflammatory effects, and protects against UV radiation. (7)

Several studies indicate that dietary zinc may reduce acne, even as effectively as antibiotics such as tetracyclines. (8) This may be because it interacts with vitamin A as a component of retinol-binding protein, which is necessary for transporting vitamin A in the blood. (9) Zinc supplementation has been shown to significantly increase the level of vitamin A in the blood, indicating an interaction between the two nutrients that may explain its positive effect on acne. (10) In fact, men and women with serious acne are found to have lower levels of serum zinc than healthy controls. (11)

Dietary sources of zinc are best absorbed from animal sources, where it is not bound to phytates as in plant sources. Organs such as kidney and liver, red meat such as beef and lamb, and seafood such as oysters, scallops, and other shellfish are the highest animal sources of zinc. Plant foods such as pumpkin seeds and other nuts can also be high in zinc as well, but are less bioavailable, as the zinc is bound to phytates if not properly prepared by soaking. To get the most zinc from your diet, include shellfish, organ meats, and red meat on a regular basis.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C has been known for decades to play a crucial role in the regulation of the structural protein collagen, which is necessary for the extracellular stability of the skin. A vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, which is first manifested as rough dry skin and corkscrew hair growth. Inadequate vitamin C is also known to contribute to the development of the common problem of hyperkeratosis pillaris, as the follicles become damaged when collagen formation is impaired.

Increasing the amount of vitamin C in the diet can contribute to improved skin health and faster healing. Observational studies have shown that diets high in vitamin C are associated with better skin appearance and less skin wrinkling. (12, 13) Vitamin C may also help prevent and treat ultraviolet (UV)-induced photo damage by acting as an antioxidant. (14) Higher intakes of dietary vitamin C have been correlated with a decreased level of dry skin, and ascorbic acid may have effects on trans-epidermal water loss. (15) Vitamin C has an important role in wound healing and can improve the proper formation of strong scar tissue. (16)

While true deficiency in the United States is uncommon, it is possible to be consuming sub-optimal levels, particularly in a diet with limited fruits and vegetables. The highest sources of vitamin C include bell peppers, guava, dark leafy greens, broccoli, brussel sprouts, kiwi, citrus fruits, and strawberries. Certain fresh herbs such as cilantro, chives, thyme, basil and parsley are also high in vitamin C. Consuming a wide variety of colorful plant foods on a regular basis is the best way to get adequate vitamin C in your diet. It’s important to remember that vitamin C is sensitive to heat, so lightly cooking these plant foods or eating them raw (if possible) is ideal to maximize your intake of this vitamin.

http://chriskresser.com/nutrition-for-healthy-skin-part-1