If, like me, you can remember where you were the day the news broke that Zovirax was becoming available over-the-counter, then you are my people and this week’s Sudden Wild Enthusiasm is for you.
If you don’t even know what Zovirax is (it’s a cold sore ointment) then relish your good fortune and carry on with your hashtag blessed life.
Meanwhile, fellow sufferers, gather around, because I have good news to share!
You will agree that one of the first indignities visited upon us is the name of our wretched affliction – the “cold” sore. Implying that they only pop up to disfigure our faces in cold weather. Because the truth is that of the many, many things that can trigger the little blighters, sunlight is one of them. I know! SUNLIGHT! There is precious little that is “cold” about that.
Stress, there’s another trigger. Eating rubbish, getting a cut in the “prone” area, even a lively session in the dentist, basically anything that traumatises the skin, can all summon forth the terrible presence of “the sore”.
Or if I get a flu-like virus, the next thing I know, the little cold sore feckers are out in solidarity.
Once the carbuncle has taken hold, I’m stuck with it for 10 days to two weeks and in their small little way, they are highly unpleasant. Painful, horrible to behold and worst of all, generating countless conversations where the other person cannot stop staring at the revolting eyesore on my face but both of us are rigidly pretending that it’s not there.
Almost as soon as Zovirax become available to the masses, murky mutterings began circulating that it was nothing like as strong as the prescription version. True? I don’t know but I’m as much a fan of a conspiracy theory as the next person. All I can say is, there’s only a very narrow window of opportunity between that initial tingling and the arrival of those first blisters and Zovirax doesn’t always hit that sweet spot.
Taking a Lysine supplement every day is rumoured to work as a preventative. I think it might have lessened my bouts but not wiped them out altogether.
And then there's this little beepy device, the Virulite, which emits magic infrared light. The idea is that the very second you feel the ominous tingling begin, you whip out your trusty Virulite and hold it against the affected area for two minutes. This effectively softens the cough of the swaggery sore and sends it scurrying away, its tail between its legs.
I swear by it.
The beauty guru Sali Hughes, another martyr to our cause, goes several steps further: twice a week, come hail or shine, she submits to The Beep, in order to proactively ward off "the sore".
I’m too lazy for that. And I still swear by it.
