I have been taking Acyclovir for this for over a year or so now. While I was thrillled to finally have something to fight back with, I not always totally happy with the results of the Acyclovir. I wanted a complete removal of all physicall symptoms, but I never got that. Sometimes it worked really great and sometimes, it barely kept it under control: I had to take it every 3.5 hours or symptoms would come back.
Well, the last time I saw Dr. S, we talked about this and he had a couple suggestions for me. He said to start taking L-Lysine, 1000 mg ( I think twice daily) instead of the Acyclovir. I did this immediately and it is SO much more effective! It works great and doesn't cause the liver pain and other long term side effects the Acyclovir might. I will forever be using the L-Lysine instead of Acylcovir! A vast improvement~ and I highly recommend it. I also started taking Vit. D and ZINC!! I need to do a whole blog post on zinc~ it is incredible what that has done.
The other big thing he said was to stop using toothpaste with Sodium Laureth Sulfate in it. From the Livestrong website: Sodium laurel sulfate, also spelled sodium lauryl sulfate is closely related to sodium laureth sulfate. He said the vast majority of viral cases (cold sores, specifically) go away once people stop using toothpaste with SLS in it.
I had never heard of SLS, and frankly, I didn't think that was the cause of my symptoms, but I agreed to find some toothpaste that didn't' have the SLS. I did find some on Amazon. It's in my cart, but I have not ordered it yet. It's REALLY expensive, but after the episode below, I plan to get some!
So, a few months ago, I bought some new Neutrogena face wash. I started to get the really, really itchy eyes and swollen face, deep cracks on my eyelids and had to apply cortizone cream on my upper and lower eyelids so I wouldn't scratch them off. At first, I didn't completely make the connection, but it didn't take long and I suspected the new face wash was the culprit. So I stopped using it and the symptoms slowly faded (this was before I was using the L-Lysine, also). Then I just kind of forgot about it.
Well, last night I used the Neutrogena face wash again for the first time in probably a couple months, and my eyes are driving me nuts! They are SO itchy and my lids are wrinkled and cracked and chapped looking. So I just looked at the ingredients list and I was SHOCKED to find out that Sodium Laurel Sulfate is the SECOND ingredient on the list!!! I am SO allergic to this stuff!
So, Dr. S was right and I am so glad he told me about SLS, because I never would have been able to decipher which of the ingredients might be causing my symptoms. Now I know what to look for and avoid! This must be pretty bad stuff if it's so commonly known to cause viral flare ups!
So, after posting this, I looked at ingredients in other things around my house. My shaving cream, shampoo, toothpaste and both of my face washes: equate brand and Neutrogena ALL have SLS in them! It's everywhere! I'm infested! However, the one that I seem to have a much, much worse reaction to is the sodium LAURETH sulfate. I did have a minor reaction to the others: spelled 'Lauryl' and 'Laurel'.
According to Dr. Mercola's website: SLS goes by other names:
Sodium dodecyl sulfate
Sulfuric acid, monododecyl ester, sodium salt
Sodium salt sulfuric acid
Monododecyl ester sodium salt sulfuric acid
A13-00356
Akyposal SDS
Aquarex methyl
Aquarex ME
A couple websites with more information about SLS:
http://slsfree.net/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/07/13/sodium-lauryl-sulfate.aspx
http://www.livestrong.com/article/538086-sodium-laureth-sulfate-allergy/