At Christmas I had a cold sore. Now, January 6th, I have another one! I had one a few weeks before the Christmas one too.

This is insane! I read that you guys get them once every few months or even a couple of times a year but a few times every month???

I take One-A-Day for women, I put on the Zovirax once I feel it starting, I stop eating any caffine, chocolate and cut way down on sugar.

And they stay under the skin just swelling up without forming a sore so they take a long time to go away! I try draining them occassionally but it doesn't make any difference whether I do or if I don't.

I really don't want to take a L-Lycine pill every day for the rest of my life just to avoid break outs!

I'm going to talk to my doctor about this but what can you guys suggest?

You don't have to take lysine daily for the rest of your life. When it comes to the common cold sore which people get at their mouth it is enough to take the lysine tablets till you have finished one bottle then give it a break. You can do this roughly 3 times per year. I at one stage got very bad cold sores which i believe were stress related and my doctor suggested the above for me and i've not had a problem since.

As for the herpes part of the healthboards, you need to understand that some people are posting about herpes and they are talking about genital herpes and others are posting about oral herpes (mouth/face area). The two conditions are both herpes, but occur differently and for different reasons and dont respond to the exact same treatement eg: lysine will help most people with oral herpes, but doesnt appear to have the same results for genital herpes. Some people know precisely what triggers their herpes o/b whereas some people have no idea.

On the whole, no matter which type of herpes you have, you have it for life and there is no cure for it. It sits there waiting to be activated by something, which could be anything from food, to stress, lifestyle, hormones, immune system etc. You can only do things to minimise the o/b's or the length of the o/b.

Yes... But one day there could be!

...Please don't take away my hope by telling me it's impossible.

It's not a life threatening illness so it's low priority, besides those people who are going through regular and bad o/b's with genital herpies aren't anywhere near a cure so i doubt the common cold sore will end up with a cure just yet and pharmaceutical companies are making so much money out of it all.

I'm pretty convinced that because so much money is spent on all of this stuff, there may never be a cure for herpes...you know?