Please be aware I am not a doctor, and this is purely an anecdotal history and in no way is a medical recommendation/non-recommendation for any of the below products or remedies. This page is solely an account of how I have come to reduce herpes symptoms in myself.
Thanks for coming to the site… This site is set up for everyone suffering from this disease. I’ve found very little literature on the web from actual people instead of just from the medical community, although I’m thankful for that as well.
In short, I contracted herpes 2 years ago (I’m pretty sure). I’m unsure if the person knew he had it, which he might have suspected. We used a condom, however, there was contact between our skin. Where we had contact is also where I first developed symptoms as well. I noticed a small bump there a few days later, but it went away, and I was told it was probably a cyst by my doctor. The bump, which was a little itchy, came back a few times within the next year and a half, but it was never a lesion. Yet still I had nagging doubts that maybe it was something worse…
After about 1 ½ years, I developed a lesion that was very painful. Went to the doctor, took a swabbing viral test. By the time I made the appointment, the lesion was starting to heal. The test came back “inconclusive.” Yet I was still devastated because my doctor and I were pretty sure: I had herpes. I cried for about 3 days… What was worse was that the disease seemed to be full blown now. I was having outbreaks every week, which forced me to become very informed very fast. After 3 months, the symptoms lessoned to just that itchy feeling every couple of days and outbreaks about once a month. After 6 months, I’ve managed to reduce outbreaks to almost none, but I still have very mild symptoms so I know I still have herpes. Though there is that tingle every now and again, my outbreaks have stopped or do not become full-blown lesions. This page is meant to address those remedies or cures that seemed to work, and those which didn’t.
My rating system is as follows: 10 stars is best (outright cure), 0 for no change.
Best so treatment so far: 8 stars for the following
regiment --- Water, rubbing alcohol, avoiding drinking
I avoid drinking, especially vodka or heavy alcohol. I noticed that drinking heavily almost always led to some type of outbreak and increased symptoms, probably since it suppresses your immune system. If I do drink, I try not to drink more than two drinks, or have beer or wine versus heavier alcohol. Also I try to drink water before and after a night out.
I also started drinking large quantities of water in general. I noticed that as soon as I started to do this, it drastically reduced my outbreaks. I started drinking water after I read some research online saying drinking 5 glasses a day greatly reduced incidences of many types of cancer, especially breast cancer. (Click here for one page about benefits of drinking water.) I drink now about 3 –4 liters a day, and as a great side effect, I have seen a marked improvement in my herpes outbreaks. I haven’t had an outbreak since I started this regiment. However, I still have very slight symptoms occasionally, as explained before, such as tingling. But no lesions or major bumps.
Finally, rubbing alcohol on the lesions/tingling areas I am most ambivalent about recommending. However, in my opinion, it really helped to reduce tingling symptoms when they did occur. I looked online and found this page about how in a lab, isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol inactivates HSV1 and HSV 2 viruses on contact. However, I couldn’t find any more in depth info on this. I DOUBT THAT THIS REDUCES SHEDDING. See below for more information about this. I have no idea, and do doubt, if this would reduce transmission between people hence YOU SHOULD ALWAYS WEAR A CONDOM no matter what. Dipping a cotton swab in alcohol and pressing against the affected areas for several seconds seemed to help very much reduce tingling/itching pretty much for an entire day.
Moreover, all the literature I’ve read says that herpes symptoms tend to decrease over time. This is because your body gets used to fighting the virus. If you just got the virus and you’re having horrible symptoms, be assured that your immunity will probably improve over time.
Taking BHT
supplements: 0 stars.
I took BHT in the very beginning of my outbreaks, since it was one of the first “cures” that I read about from some book written in the 1970s. It seemed to me that I had NO reduction in symptoms. I bought BHT online from a site labeled SmartBodyz nutrition, or smart-herbs.com. Now, the quality of the pills, who knows. But I started with 250 mg a day every day, and when that didn’t work, I went to 500 and then to 1000 mg. I took the pills with peanut butter usually, since I read online that it was best to take it with soluble fat like oils to ingest it. Nada. I took the pills for a total of about 1 – 1 ½ months… I noticed no improvement whatsoever. Now, maybe you’re supposed to take them for longer to let it build up in your body (which sounds shady to me). Or maybe I shouldn’t have taken them with peanut butter but with oil instead, which is disgusting to taste. The fact remains that at the end of this experiment, I was taking 1000 mg a day for about 1-2 weeks, with no reduction in symptoms whatsoever.
Taking Valtrex: 1 star.
Valtrex was what my doctor prescribed, but I didn’t see much improvement. Valtrex is for times of outbreak, although I think you can take it for extended periods. However, it caused a little bit of nausea for me, so I wouldn’t want to do this. One prescription is for 3 days of pills, and costs close to a hundred dollars. I took this for my first two outbreaks, and it did not seem to reduce the length of my outbreaks. But, for what it costs, it should do better than that! Not reduce your symptoms by a day or two, in my opinion (if it did that at all). However, I’m sure that experiences vary. But I’ve read also online that Valtrex actually reduces symptoms period in very few people, yet it’s one of the most prescribed drugs.
Lemon Balm Cream (Melissa Officinalis Extract). 1 star.
Herpes has been the ultimate lesson of how nonmedical claims of cures or remedies online are pretty much never true. Lemon Balm Cream supposedly greatly reduces the severity of cold sores/lesions. However, in my case, they did NOT reduce the number of genital herpes outbreaks, and you have to apply many times a day to benefit. The benefit, by the way, just seemed to be a numbing of the lesion. If there was any reduction in the length of an outbreak I saw none. In my opinion, rubbing alcohol had a much longer lasting effect of reducing tingling and outbreaks.
Can you tell I’m online a lot? If you’re like me and have herpes and researched online, you’ve probably seen Choraphor ads on Google, proclaiming that many people experience no symptoms after applying once. Well, I coughed up 100 bucks, so let me tell you, that I think this product is less than what people hope. I suspected so when all the letters on their sites where about how perfect their product is. With any medicine, there are always a percentage of people that it won’t work for, but Choraphor distributors obviously aren’t going to tell you what these people say… I tried Choraphor and this was my experience. It comes in a small bottle, in a hand written small package about 3 inch by 5 inch. Not very professional looking, and the directions inside read like they were written by a Chinese person. But it was a 100 bucks, so what are you going to do? I tried it for several weeks. I found that it reduced itching and burning on lesions, although application 2-3 times a day was necessary. However, the number of outbreaks was not reduced for me. The best recommendation I can make for reducing symptoms is the regiment I described above. I’m not implying that for some people, Choraphor may have been a cure, but rather do not expect this to be a cure as the website may imply.
The drug I’m most looking forward to trying should a suddenly come upon the money to get health insurance or buy drugs: Famvir
I don’t expect to be
trying this anytime soon. I saw one site offering Famvir for $219 for a 30 pill
supply. This is an everyday pill, so that is pretty pricey for a month
supply. I just heard on TV as well that
you shouldn’t order pills online, since their integrity may be in question. I
have no idea how much a doctor would charge, but it’s probably out of the price
range for anyone without insurance and average income. However, Famvir was proven
to reduce asymptomatic viral shedding (click
here to read more.) For those of you who do not know what this is, I will
try to explain. The body sheds the virus, and this is how it is passed from
person to person. The virus can then attach to the other person, thereby
infecting a cell and then instruct the cell to replicate the virus. The days
before a break out and up to 11 days after a breakout, there is significant
shedding going on. Also, there is ALMOST ALWAYS a small amount of viral
shedding going on by the person, even if no symptoms persist. If you have any
experiences to share about this drug, please write me at the email below…
Most herpes infections (I’ve read 70-80%) occur when the
infected person is exhibiting no symptoms.
This is probably because people have sex more when they’re not exhibiting
symptoms, thinking it’s safe. That is why it’s important to USE A CONDOM
EVERYTIME YOU HAVE SEX, AND MAKE SURE YOU DON’T COME INTO CONTACT WITHOUT A
CONDOM. I know several people who have contracted venereal disease, including
genital warts, from pure non-sexual contact.
But I’d love more info on this product, especially experiences about
side-effects.
******
Hope this helps you… Good
luck to anyone battling this disease! Please know there’s millions out there
just like you… I want to start a webring of people’s experiences, your help
would be greatly appreciated! A webring is a page like this that contains
information, but also contains links to similar pages. Go to angelfire.com and
sign up for a free site. (Put in fake info if you don’t want to give your real
name). If you email me your website address or URL (such as
http://www.angelfire.com/……), I’ll add your
link to the bottom of this page.
Here is my email: sarahshalayley@yahoo.com
If you’re totally web illiterate, have no fear, just write
whatever you have to say in a Microsoft Word document, and save it as “index.html”.
Upload it to angelfire, and you’ve got a page!
But the way Angelfire adds the
links below, I don’t…. Unfortunately, I haven’t tried any of them and can’t
say anything about them.
