I love when bloggers get real on their blogs. When we see that life isn’t perfect. When I can relate my normal messy life to theirs. So today I’m sharing a tiny bit of my life that is messy and not perfect.
I get cold sores.
I know it’s not a big reveal and they aren’t a terrible plague on one’s life, but it’s still ugly and inconvenient. As long as I can remember I have had cold sores after period of high stress. Whether it’s getting bad news concerning grad school funding, or seeing my first rain spider in Africa (do not google! …I warned you), my stress comes out that way. When I was younger, and cared so much more about what people thought of me, I hated it. I thought I was ugly and that everyone who saw me saw how disgusting I looked with that weird scab thing growing on my lip. I thought it was basically a lot bigger than it was. Now, I care a little less. I still feel like a bit of a leper, but it’s more because of the fact that it stops me from kissing my boyfriend and such.
Cold sores aren’t a problem that occur often (thank god). I get them maybe 3 times a year, but they last for about two weeks. From the moment my lip starts tickling to the moment my lip looks smooth and clear again. For those who don’t get cold sores, I can only imagine how horrible it might look. I also always imagined that people are afraid to catch it. I’ve had people half hug me once. Nope, you can’t catch it that way! I have actually kissed my boyfriend (sideways) with a cold sore and even shared a spoon or glass with friends. Guess what? Nothing happened. It’s nothing terrible. And while I always tried to convince others of that, I think I was really trying to convince myself. Because when I was younger it really hit hard on my self-esteem.
When I was younger I wasn’t trying to fix it. I didn’t really know what to do actually. Then came all these creams and stuff that apparently help reduce the healing time of a cold sore. I tried a couple of those. I think it did help, but I wasn’t seeing a drastic difference. Recently, literally a couple of months ago, a friend of the family told me that she had been told that the way to treat a cold sore is to dry it out. Creams help keep cold sores moist, which in turn doesn’t help heal the cold sore. It was like a revelation!
A months ago, when I got my last cold sore, I went to the pharmacy to get something new to treat it. I was really intrigued by Polysporin’s healing patches. I tried them and I have to say I will swear by them from now on. To anyone who has ever had a cold sore I say, try it! The first five days I put two or three patches a day (because a patch works for about 8 hours). After that, I put a single patch during the night for another week. Then BOOM it was over! No weird growth, no scab, nothing! While I have to say that it is true that it hides the redness the cold sore creates on your lip, no one will be fooled by the plastic bit that is sticking to your skin. Like most things however, people don’t ask so don’t mind them.
If you also suffer from chronic cold sores please feel free to share any experience and tips you may have! Thanks for listening to this little tiny bit of messy life. xx
**This is not a sponsored post. It contains my true opinions and experiences.**
