Cold Sores Home Remedies from Canada

The Herpes Simplex Virus (usually the HSV-1 strain, although cases of oral infection involving HSV-2 have been documented, although rare) is what causes your cold sores, and as you probably already know, you can never get rid of the virus so therefore you’ll always continue to suffer from outbreaks of cold sores, although after you’ve been infected for a while you’ll likely go years in between outbreaks. For more detailed information on herpes, what causes cold sores, and how they develop, check out: What Is A Cold Sore?.  Now, concerning how contagious a cold sore is, it depends on what stage of development your cold sore is at…
Cold sores, technically, are contagious from the time one first appears until a time after it’s completely gone, so quite a while actually.  From the Mayo Clinic:

“Cold sores are contagious. They can pass from one person to another through skin-to-skin contact. The greatest risk of infection is from the time the blisters appear until they have completely dried and crusted over. There is a possibility of spreading the virus for some time even after the skin has healed.

If you have a cold sore, avoid close contact with infants, anyone who has eczema (atopic dermatitis) or people with a suppressed immune system, such as people with cancer, AIDS or an organ transplant. These people are at higher risk of more severe infection.

Herpes simplex infection of the eye causes scarring of the cornea and is a leading cause of blindness in the United States.”

Source: MayoClinic.com

So there you are, they are contagious at every stage and even for a while after they’re gone, but what’s really important to note is that they are especially contagious when they’re leaking fluid–in this case

spread it to somewhere else on your body or to another person if they touch it.  I’d also recommend rinsing your toothbrush with alcohol to disinfect it after every time you use it if you have, or have recently had, an active outbreak.

In addition to this, there’s also various prescription, over-the-counter, and home treatments you can use to varying degrees of effectiveness, some of which can actually prevent a cold sore from developing altogether if you use it as soon as you feel the tingling of an oncoming outbreak. I highly recommend you check out the most effective home remedy myself and several of my friends have ever tried:

Something My Friend Concocted…

My best experience with home remedies is with something concocted by Grace, a close friend of mine, and I must say that this cold sore treatment has worked every single time for me (often inside of 24 hours), and even more impressive is I’ve seen it work on about 25 other people she’s tried it on, with very good consistency. She was so enthusiastic about her discovery that she has decided to turn it into an e-book, so I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I didn’t try to help her out a bit on my blog. One of the first women that we “experimented” on (she’s our close friend and was glad to give it a go), was Gretchen, who occasionally crosses the border from Wisconsin to come visit us, look at what she said:

“Grace,

I wanted to get a note to you to thank you for the information in your ebook. I must admit I was very skeptical when I read your instructions, but you were right on the money. My double bout with cold sores was gone after only 6 days. The best part of this entire program has been that to this point (3 months later), the cold sores have not returned. I can hardly believe it – thanks so much!”

Gretchen Rhodes, 47
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Please go have a look at my friend Grace’s solution for the matter here: Cold Sore Freedom: Cold Sores Cured in 3 Days–I’ve personally tried this and it is currently my favorite method of handling my cold sores, and it’s not because it’s necessarily the fastest (I’ve found that if I drain, wash, and apply nail polish remover to a cold sore several times a day while keeping an ice cube on it the WHOLE day, about 50% of the time it’ll be gone in about 2 days, but it’s unreliable at best and you can’t do ANYTHING else that day but attend to your cold sore). It’s because it works EVERY TIME, often within the first 24 hours–3 days is more like the unlikely maximum, you’re much more likely to see it gone within 24 hours or so–and it only requires a few minutes of your time every day, so I highly recommend you give it a chance and if it doesn’t work then just get your money back, no harm no foul we’re all still friends, ok?