Health: How to prevent and treat cold-sores.

What are cold-sores?

Cold sores are blisters that spring-up in your mouth, on your lips or around your nose or mouth.
Sometimes they appear on the corners of your lips making it painful when you want to open your mouth. They also appear on your lips making the surface black.

They sometimes appear in your nose giving you a lot of pain after you pluck them or touch them. When they are inside your mouth, it would be difficult to eat  food containing pepper and some other food materials including water sometimes.

According to doctors, a person can be a carrier of the fever blister but it may not manifest in years. It is a common infection that can easily be transferred from one person to another through kissing, the kiss does not have to be a french kiss or a deep kiss. Just a light kiss on the lips will transfer the infection.

Yoruba people call it "Ishinu" or "majata". "majata" means don't eat pepper because cold sores will make you run away from pepper if you have it. So if you carry the infection, it can spring up anytime you have a fever or anytime you stress yourself for long periods. The worst part of it is when it springs up during the harmattan season; you would be sorry.

When it is about to spring up, you will be feeling tickles around your lips and nose, it is best that as soon as you begin to have those feelings that you start the treatment immediately. Although if you don't bother treating them, the sores would disappear by themselves after a long painful while and will come back anytime you have a fever. So it is advisable for you to look for a permanent solution to it.

Locally there are ways that you can use to cure remove the infection. The materials are listed below:

• Honey
• Garlic
• Prescribed Herbs

Honey: Original or non-adulterated honey can be used; just apply it graciously on the surface of the blisters and in two days it would have dried up completely.

Garlic: Squeez out the juice from the garlic apply it generously with a cotton wool on the surface of the blisters. The process is going to hurt tho'.

Apply any of the two methods doing them at-least two- three times daily for maximum deletion of the infection.

To prevent yourself from having cold sores, the following points will help you not to trigger them:

• Manage your stress: Don't stress yourself for too long
• Rest very well: It is a good way of reducing stress.
• Avoid staying under the sun for a very long time
• Use sunscreen for your lips to prevent the UV rays from activating the infection.

If you are having a constant and frequent occurrence of cold-sores, it is advisable that you see your doctor to look into your predicament. Although there is no cure for the infection but there are drugs to make them heal faster and also reduce the pain they bring along .

Warning: Do not attempt to peel the sores. Sometimes you might be tempted to peel the sores when you touch it. The more you touch the more it spreads. the more you also peel the more it spreads. So just leave it and treat it. It will disappear.