What Causes A Cold Sore On Your Lip And How To Remove It

Cold sores are a nasty condition to suffer from, causing painful blisters on the lips and sometimes inside the mouth. However, you don’t have to suffer in silence, as the causes are well known and we can offer various forms of effective cold sore medication to ease the problem.

What Are Cold Sores?

Cold sores are defined as blisters that appear around the lips and mouth, caused by the herpes simplex virus, or HSV. They can be itchy, swollen and sore, leak fluid and then scab over before eventually clearing up.

There are a few things to understand about this virus:

·       There are two forms of HSV, with cold sores usually being caused by HSV-1, and HSV-2 accounting for the sexually transmitted herpes virus, although cold sores are among the symptoms of the latter

·       Most people carry at least one form of HSV

·       Consequently, nobody will assume you have an STI just because you have cold sores

·       HSV-1can be caught by skin-to-skin contact, as well as kisses and sharing objects such as cutlery

·       Once caught, the virus stays in your body for life, but can lie dormant and therefore cause asymptomatic infection

·       Because of the potential for the virus to go through extended periods of dormancy, you won’t have cold sores all the time, but rather they can flare up suddenly

·       Triggers for such a flare-up include stress, illness, menstruation, exposure to hot sunlight in summer, or surgery

Who Suffers From Cold Sores?

Because the HSV-1 virus is spread quite easily through non-sexual contact with an infected person (including mother-to-child contact), practically anyone can become infected and suffer from the cold sores.

As well as blisters on your lips, the following symptoms can also arise:

·       Swollen gums with sores in and around the mouth, known as herpes simplex gingivostomatitis (both children and adults)

·       A sore throat and swollen glands (in children and adults)

·       Excess saliva production (in children)

·       High temperature and headaches (in children)

·       Nausea (in children)

This means that if you have had the virus as a child, there is a possibility that you may develop some periodic symptoms as an adult, although for many, this will be limited to cold sores and nothing else. 

Unless you have a weak immune system caused by AIDS or another condition, the infection will never be life-threatening.

What Medical Interventions Can Help?

However, just because you won’t have cold sores all the time and they are not usually life-threatening does not mean you just have to put up with them and wait for them to go away. There is medication that can remove them from your lips.

·       Injections of medications such as Foscarnet (serious cases only)

·       Creams such as Docansol, which is available over the counter at a pharmacy

·       Prescription creams such as Zovirax and Denavir

·       Prescription tablets such as Zovirax or Famvir

These medications are all antivirals that will help to combat the virus, stopping it from spreading and reducing its symptoms. This can ease the pain and swelling and shorten the time you are suffering.

Once again, however, it should be noted that these will not cure the virus and instead, it will go dormant, leaving you with the prospect of needing similar medications again in the future.

However, what they will do is help you to ward off the attack of cold sores until next time, providing plenty of relief until the next time.

In addition, you can add a few non-prescription treatments to ease the symptoms:

·       Lip balms to seal in the moisture

·       Painkillers like Ibuprofen

·       Cream painkillers

·       Alcohol-based treatments to help dry out the blisters

·       Hot compresses

How Can You Avoid Infecting Others With Cold Sores?

If you have cold sores, it is also wise to take steps not to give them to others, for example, by kissing them or other close physical contact. 

Now that Christmas and New Year have come and gone, the risk may be reduced as you will (barring birthdays) probably have less contact with family members whom you would normally show affection to.

Cold sores are a long way from the most worrying of infections. But because they can be very painful, affect your facial appearance and are a frequently recurrent issue for many sufferers, knowing what to do when they arise is very important.

Fortunately, with the range of different treatments we have, from simple painkillers to antiviral creams and tablets, you can get rid of them from your lips much sooner than if you left them to run their course, with a lot less pain, itching and discomfort as well.