Ins and Outs of Cold Sore Treatments

Cold sores (or fever blisters) are itchy, painful and unsightly -3 out of 10 people get them on a regular basis but nobody talks about them!

Cold sores are caused by the herpes virus.

There are two kinds of herpes infection -HSV1 which most often causes cold sores on the lips; HSV2 usually causes infection in the genital area and is considered a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

Note: Cold sores (HSV1) can be spread to the genital area and genital herpes (HSV2) can be spread to the mouth.

You can get the infection from kissing someone with the virus or eating/drinking after someone who is infected. Many parents pass the virus to their children. Once you have the infection, you can not be healed -but you can prevent and treat cold sores.

Cold sores (fever blisters) usually start as a small sore on the lip which slowly grows larger and looks like a blister. The "blisters" will break open and eventually scab over and fall off. During this time, you can pass the virus to others and spread it to other areas of the lip and body.

The good news is that they will usually clear up within a few days to two weeks.

The bad news is that they can be painful, unattractive and can take TWO weeks to clear up!

You should start treatment as soon as you know a cold sore is coming (either from itchy/tingling feeling or seeing the small sore).

To treat cold sores:

1. Apply ice for a 3 minutes 4 times an hour for 2 hours.

2. Start taking Motrin (ibuprofen) - 1 to 2 tablets every 4 to 6 hours or Tylenol Extra Strength (acetaminophen) - 1 tablet every 4 hours.

3. Avoid acidic foods (pizza, orange juice) -you'll know it is bad because it will most likely HURT.

4. Rinse with warm water mixed with 1 teaspoon of baking soda

5. Apply Abreva cream (available OTC at the pharmacy) -apply 5 times a day for up to 10 days. Abreva is the only OTC medication proven to decrease symptoms and aids in healing.

6. If the cold sore is painful -apply Anbesol or Orajel over the Abreva to help numb the area.

7. Take a prescription drug like acyclovir or Valtrex. These meds are by prescription only, so talk to your physician about them. The recommended doses are...

* Valtrex (valacyclovir) - Take 2 Valtrex 1,000 mg tablets twice daily for day 1 then take 1 Valtrex 1,000mg tablet twice a day on day 2.

* Zovirax (acyclovir) -Take acyclovir 400mg tablet five times a day

* Both medications work -Valtrex is taken less often and may be more convenient but acyclovir comes in a generic and can be less expensive.

8. You can also use some natural supplements:

* Lysine -500mg to 1,000mg/day for 5 to 10 days

* Vitamin C -100 to 500mg/day for 5 to 10 days

* Lemon balm -apply 2 to 4 times a day for 5 days

To prevent future outbreaks of cold sores:

1. Stress, sun and illness can lead to an outbreak of cold sores -so avoid when at all possible!

2. Avoid drinking after, using utensils or kissing anyone with an active infection

3. Prescription drugs...

* Zovirax (acyclovir) -Take 200mg three to five times daily

* Valtrex (valacyclovir) - Take 500mg one time daily

So, now you know...and knowing is half the battle!

Nova Simpson, Pharm.D.

http://www.getpharmacyadvice.com

My best bud -Cate Sibley, Pharm.D. and I started our own pharmacy blog -where you can ask any questions any time!

Want to learn about genital herpes?

http://www.getpharmacyadvice.com/genital-herpes-and-you/

Stem Cells and Regenerative Therapies - How to Extract the Essence

The process of finding and developing new drugs is long and costly. It takes years and millions of dollars for one single new drug to be developed from the stage in which a candidate molecule was identified to the ultimate stage of regulatory approval for marketing. The new era of stem cells and regenerative medicine does not shorten this process. On the contrary, it presents new challenges in the road through translation into approved therapy. The challenges are due to the completely new and different structure of the final product. Patients are treated with living cells instead of active molecules. The road to develop new cell based therapy is not less long, complicated or costly than the road to develop conventional drugs.

The amount of information in the media, both professional and popular, is huge. Nonetheless, most of it, although interesting and supportive for further development, is not applicable for present patient's needs. If we want to evaluate the current potential of a new therapy, the most important parameter is how close it is to clinical utilization. Practically, we want to know if the therapy is used already to treat diseases in human beings. Such treatment can be either experimental in its early stages, or ultimately, approved by regulatory authorities and provided by companies, clinics and hospitals.

Let us look at the various stages of development and thus be able to identify the most relevant ones according to this simple principle. Research is conducted on the molecular and cellular levels, as well as in experimental animal models. Such research generates large amount of data, and set the basis for identifying new modules of therapies. Once a promising candidate is identified, the process of drug or cell based therapy starts. It needs full characterization, understanding mechanism of activity, optimization of large scale production, thorough analysis of safety profile, establishing quality control tests and more. The first stage is a general or theoretical research, while the second is called pre-clinical development. Once this stage is accomplished, the product is ready for clinical studies, following the submission and approval by regulatory body. This third stage is termed clinical development. The clinical studies are conducted at three stages and if successful, approval for marketing is obtained. A product or process which is presently being tested in clinical studies, can be better evaluated for its current application. Being in the clinical stage of development is meaningful for practical purposes, although only few products will turn to be safe and effective, and approved for clinical use. The clinical phase of the development may take about 2 to 5 years, and sometimes longer.

In some countries, it is legal and possible to offer cell based treatments even before the full scale clinical studies were completed. Clinics and hospitals in such countries are treating patients for life threatening and chronic diseases before thorough testing and approval by regulatory agencies in the US, Europe or other countries. Most of these clinics do not conduct or publish systematic clinical trials, but they usually provide information on the technologies and therapeutic approaches used. Can this be regarded as "tested in human patients"? The answer is no, but it is up to the patient to decide whether he would like to take the risk with all its implications, rather than wait for the therapy to be approved.

Most reliable information on ongoing clinical studies is found in the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) database - Clinicaltrials.gov. Although US based, most clinical studies from many other countries as well are published in this comprehensive website which also includes effective internal search option. However, early pilot and phase I studies are usually not listed there. Results on clinical studies can be found in the well known scientific literature data base website, the US NIH (National Institute of Health) PubMed -Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Here again, the relevant clinical data will be difficult to extract from the plethora of scientific information, and it is mostly used by professional scientists. Large medical centers will also provide updated information on scientific achievements, along with clinical trials and results. Many other blogs and websites, as well as professional organizations, provide information on stem and cell therapy news. For clinical relevant information on cell therapies - My New Therapy website is patient oriented and focuses on clinical data. As suggested, you can evaluate the current clinical relevance of a piece of news according to its proximity to being tested in human patients, or preferably, if being already a part of reliable clinical study. This rule of thumb, being tested in human patients, can help to better judge for practical purposes or needs, the clinical value of a product, service, technology or process.

Dr. Avi Treves is currently the Deputy Director of the Sheba Cancer Research Center at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel. Operating the Ella Institute for treatment and research of Melanoma, the Family Cord Blood Bank and Bio Regenerate Inc, a start up company developing adult stem cells technologies and storage services.

Previously, the founder and CEO of Gamida Cell Ltd.; CEO of Hadasit Ltd., the tech transfer company of the Hadassah Medical Center.

PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; Post doc at Stanford University Medical School, CA USA.

Expert in developing cell based technologies, products and their clinical applications. Adviser and scientific board member for biotech companies. Co-author of more than 90 scientific publications and 10 patents.

For more information on clinically relevant stem cells, regenerative medicine and immunotherapy go to: http://www.mynewtherapy.com