Fever Blister (Cold Sore) - 27 years of Relief!!

I suffered from fever blisters starting in 5th grade. They would creep up and take over at least 1/2 of my top and bottom lips. They looked bad, felt bad and made it VERY hard to eat!

Sometime in 6th grade my mother took me to a doctor about them and all he did was give me three shots of penicillin on separate days. The shots did absolutely nothing for me but took plenty of money out of my mother's wallet!

So I continued to suffer with the pain and disfiguration regularly until I was about 25 years old. I met a woman across the street from me and we became friends. I broke out with my normal huge mess of fever blisters sometime during our friendship and she was somewhat amazed because she had never been around anyone who had fever blisters in the massive quantity I did. She proceeded to tell me that she had read somewhere, in a magazine that she was unable to relocate, that fever blisters were caused by a deficiency of L-lysine (an amino acid) in the body and that poultry is where you get it (in your diet). She also remembered that the article said the lysine was most concentrated in boiled eggs.

Well, this was before the "supplement" craze had taken hold like it is today so L-lysine was not easily found in "supplement" form. Also, I was in the "young with family and poor" phase of my life so I couldn't have afforded the supplement anyway. But, I LOVED eggs in any form.

I proceeded to experiment by eating more boiled eggs, to start with, right then while I had the fever blisters. It took a couple of days of eating about 3 or 4 boiled eggs each day but on that 3rd day, I noticed a major difference in the amount of pain I was having. So, I continued to eat 3-4 boiled eggs per day to see if it made a difference in how long it took for the fever blisters to go away.

Normally it took about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks from the time the fever blisters appeared on my lips to the time they were finally gone (no scabs, nothing). By eating the eggs, the time was shortened by 50%.

Something you need to know about fever blisters/cold sores is that if you don't begin to treat them until after they have fully erupted into a blister, you're in for a long healing process. If you can catch them before they completely form, you can get rid of them within a day or 2 but you have to stay on top of it. Unfortunately, they can go "full blown" in about 4 to 8 hours so if you don't realize one is coming on until you get to work that day (and don't have any L-lysine in your purse), you will have a problem before you get home.

After a while, I got tired of having to cram so many eggs down and started looking for L-lysine in a "pill" form. I had no idea how much lysine was in an egg so I didn't really know how much to take so I had to experiment with it to see how much I could take. My body is one of those that is resistant to or inefficient at utilizing vitamins and minerals so I can take big doses of things many people cannot (not the toxic ones). You must know your body and experiment with low doses then increase them until you find the dosage that works for you.

The L-lysine in supplement form works just as well for me so I keep a supply handy at all times. Right now, I am using 500 mg caplets and have very few breakouts. I only take them when I feel a fever blister coming on. I had an "event" last week and it took 6 of the 500 mg caplets but the fever blister was completely gone by the end of the day.

My husband, parents, son and nephew all use L-lysine to take care of their minor breakouts as well and it works just as well for them as me but they usually do not have to take the large dose I do.

Please pass this on to anyone you know who suffers from fever blisters/cold sores.

Do not construe this as prescribed medicine. I am not a doctor.