After doing research, I found I could keep OBs completely under control by taking supplements, like red marine algae and olive leaf extract, and altering my diet, eating no foods that contained an appreciable amount of arginine, and none that contained a higher arginine to lysine ratio. I found international nutritional tables and did deeper research into each food. I was traveling to seafood shops to purchase shark steaks and avoiding all nuts and whole grains, revamping my entire diet. However, all of the sudden I discovered that achieving an orgasm and/or having multiple orgasms was more challenging, which I definitely needed to address. Back to research, I found that arginine is essential to these functions. In order to balance all of these events, I tried eating foods that are higher in lysine, but which do still have a fair amount of arginine. I have even gone back to some of my high arginine foods and couple it with a lysine supplement. It seems everything is working out.

Would you mind sharing what some of those foods that you eat to controll OBs are?

Is rice on the list of no nos?

This is just a partial list. Ok, please remember that any and all references may be disputed and there may be other references which conflict with the information I found. Where available, in parentheses I have included the ratio of the 2 amino acids (lysine/arginine), i.e. (good/bad).

I eat healthy, and I found I was eating all the exactly wrong foods. I was eating fruit for breakfast, blueberries and fresh orange juice (22/117), salads for lunch, broccoli, whole grains and rice, chocolate covered peanuts. I had a lot of nuts in my diet. I put walnuts (38/725) on just about every salad.

As far as grains go, rice (23/72) is the worst offender. Sorry. Potatoes (130/46), which I always avoided, are better than pasta (183/291). Rye (35/43) Oats (25/47) Whole grain wheat (21/30) is a little high in arginine, but wheat germ (45/18) is the other way around. Go figure.

Hazelnuts (175/894) Sunflower seeds (25/57) Sesame seeds (13/83) Cashews (287/647). I didn't find peanuts, but I found mixed nuts with peanuts (934/2874) and I've read that peanuts are the highest in arginine. Pecans (225/650) probably the least offensive nut. But I did find that chick peas (95/22) are a good choice for salads.

Broccoli (287/296), all the cruciferous vegetables are fairly close to that, not too bad, but tipping the scale in favor of arginine. A better choice is celery (29/22). Corn (38/31). Mushrooms, white (125/90) are a fantastic choice because they are great for boosting your immune system at the same time, helping you fight viral replication.

Apricots (156/47), apples (14/6), and pears (25/14) are the best fruits. Bananas (112/110) are a zero, but blueberries (19/54) should be avoided. Avoid citrus, grapefruit (43/200).

Any finfish is great, high in lysine, the best fish you can do is fresh shark (539/351) and swordfish (2472/1610). Mollusks just tip the scale in favor of lysine, raw oysters (1307/1275), although I rarely eat them anymore because of Hepatitis, steamed mussels (1512/1477), and fried calamari (1113/1096). Crustaceans are about zero, steamed blue crabs (2072/2082).

Lamb (45/25) is a best choice of meats. Chicken (55/70) Beef (22/36). But beef boosts your immune system which is good too, so I still eat lots of beef. Pork is probably the worst choice of meats (39/62) but sausage (86/62), surprisingly, comes in as high in lysine.

All dairy products are high in lysine. The best are the cheeses. Gouda (5255/1905) and Swiss (3412/1224) are at the top. Mozarella (690/292) Yogurt is great, and low fat vanilla (1083/363) is even better than non-fat fruit yogurt (1076/370). Cow's milk (450/160) Goat's milk (327/84) is incredible if you can find it.

And last, but certainly not least on my list…ice cream! Regular vanilla ice cream (186/90) is great and so is French vanilla soft ice cream (255/148). And beer, according to my latest findings, contrary to what I had read before, has no amino acids! There is a God.

Okay. So balancing them out is what you need to do. Say if I eat rice, eat something with a lot of lysine in it, right? Or do you just stay away from them all together??

The way I see it, is if you are eating healthy food, but balancing the good and the bad, you'll be ok. Correct??

Thanks for posting this though, really helps me out a lot!!

When I totally eliminated arginine from my diet, as much as humanly possible, I started having a lot of difficulty having an orgasm. I've never had that problem in my life! I knew something was wrong. So I did some more research and realized that I have to have some arginine.

Arginine isn't a total bad guy. Arginine is responsible for hormone release and is sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction. So my hormones were suppressed. And my erectile tissues were not responding. Kinda like the opposite effect of Viagra. And arginine also helps your body build up your immune system, and you need that to fight the virus.

What I can got out of my personal little research is that the lysine, if more plentiful than the arginine, to whatever degree ;) , will keep the virus from being able to make copies of itself, the shedding process. When the virus is trying to replicate, it's trying to build DNA, which is the double helix of amino acids, and it has to have arginine. Having more lysine in your system than arginine suppresses viral replication of HSV2.

And well, I cheat. If I want to eat something, say some dark chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, I'll take a lysine supplement with it. It's just a pill. It works.

oceana,

How did you come to the conclusion that lesser amounts of Arginine and greater amounts of Lysine in your diet deterred the shedding process? Are you able to tell when your body sheds?

I'm aware that eating foods higher and lower with the respective "ines" can/will lower your number of outbreaks but seriously how do you know that you are putting a halt on the shedding process?

Go California!! Nice pick-up.

It's not that I doubt that certain foods are more beneficial than others in preventing or reducing OB's. In fact, I'm quite certain that that is true - be it arginine/lysine or something else. But I'm really unsure as to how one could know whether or not they have stopped shedding, seeing as you don't know when it's happening to begin with!!

(Hey where you been?? Haven't heard from you in awhile!!)