When you get that irritating, itching feeling around the mouth, you may ask yourself what are cold sores? Cold sores are small blisters that appear around your lips. The blisters are painful, and are often red and swollen. You may have heard them referred to as “fever blisters” as well. They may start with a burning or tingling sensation. They progress from there into the blister stage. The blisters may break and exude a clear fluid. After a few days, the blisters crust over and form a small, red, painful sore that can take up to two weeks to heal. Some experience swollen glands or other mild symptoms of illness with an active sore. Unfortunately, if you have ever had a cold sore, you will probably have them again. In fact, you may experience them multiple times. It is common for cold sores to even occur in the same spot time after time. When asking, “what are cold sores”, take care not to confuse them with canker sores. Canker sores are ulcers inside the mouth, and follow a different progression of symptoms. Cold sores don’t cause mouth ulcers but you do need to know how to get rid of a cold sore fast.
Cold sores are caused by a retro virus called Herpes Simplex or HSV. Once you are infected with a retro virus, it remains in your system in a dormant state. It simply finds a collection of nerve cells in your skin, and makes its residence there. It doesn’t harm you while it is dormant, but on the other hand, you are never “cured” from it. If you have a fever or a cold or are otherwise ill, if you have had some trauma to the skin around your lips, if you are under physical or emotional stress, your immune system may weaken and the retro virus may reawaken, causing another cold sore. Sometimes cold sores reappear without any apparent reason at all. On the other hand, sometimes people go months or years without ever getting a re-occurrence.
How to Treat A Cold Sore?
How do you get a cold sore to begin with and how to treat a cold sore once you got one? They are contagious infections. If you come into direct contact with someone’s cold sore, you can catch the Herpes Simplex virus. Sometimes they spread in families, from mother to child. Unfortunately, people who have cold sores transmit the virus even when their infections are not active. It is useful to know that you may be contagious for up to six weeks after an infection, so take the same care you would use if you had a cold or the flu. Some believe that you cannot easily get the virus from a contaminated surface like a cup or wash cloth but there is not complete agreement on that point. If you are infected, the recommendation is to wash your hands frequently, and take care with the items that touch your mouth. If you are in close quarters with someone with a cold sore, take the same precautions you would with any contagious illness.
If you are still asking yourself what are cold sores, it is good to know that the first infection is the most painful and the most severe. Subsequent cold sores are generally never as bad as the first one. There is a variety of preventative and palliative treatments and home remedies for cold sores, so it is good to experiment to find what works best for you to take care of yourself once infected.
