I mentioned earlier that I seem to be having a non-stop outbreak despite having a pretty good immune system. One thing I am concerned about is the amino acid arginine. I've read a lot about arginine foods triggering outbreaks and lysine foods helping to avoid them. Here is my problem: I have a lot of food allergies, so I eat a lot of peas as a source of protein, complex carbs and higher calorie vegetables. I eat probably two full servings a day and peas are known for being high in arginine. I don't really eat any other foods that are known to be significantly high in arginine. On the other hand, I also drink three full servings of milk a day and use two full servings of whey protein as well as other dairy foods. Dairy products are high in lysine.

Is it possible that I am having so many problems because of the peas in my diet? Or should my high dairy intake (thus high in lysine) counteracts the arginine in the peas?

Has anyone had any success by cutting down on arginine and/or eating more foods with lysine? I have tried a lysine drop supplement, but it was mixed with a bunch of herbs and something in it made me sneezy. Maybe I should try again with just pure Lysine? I have difficulty swallowing pills. Can anyone recommend a liquid supplement that is just pure lysine? Or, would a lysine based ointment have any effect topically?

I can't really answer your questions, but not too long ago there was a post that listed the arginine/lysine ratios for all the food groups that might help you our. The title was somewhat similar to yours... don't remember exactly. It was posted by Oceana - not Oceanus. Do a search for it and it might help you out.

The only thing that consistently bothered me was chocolate, nuts , and caffeine.

I've been taking niacin and lysine for two weeks, and I was so happy from the results, it was healing unbelievable, until yesterday I ate a chicken pot pie, I told my mom how I had another out-break, and was feeling bad, she told me it could have been something I ate, so I started doing some research, the chicken pot pies had a lot of peas and carrots, and the arginine is higher than lysine, both peas and carrots, plus I have a cold, so my outbreak could have been from a combination of the three, now that I have a list of foods that tells me the ratios in the lysine and arginine, I'm going to stick with a good nutrition diet, lysine vs arginine. Excercise staying healthy and staying on your diet, be careful what you eat, cause what you eat can cause the outbreaks, common colds and some say sunlight, if you type in what is (arginine) you'll be surprise what you 'll come across that may help you.

Good luck, try not to worry so much it only makes things worst, things will get better.

aminah01

I have read a lot of people were having sucsess keeping their outbreaks at bay by keeping their system more alkaline based than acidic. So, I started looking into eating that way and I have been outbreak free (knock wood) for 10 months.

I also take l-lysine daily along with other supplements.

In reading about alkaline versus acidic systems, it seems that all dis-ease thrives in an acidic system.

I guess it's really about trying to have a balanced ph and a strong immune system.

I'm just trying things that make sense to me...

I appreciate reading everyone's input here. There's so much to learn!