Zovirax Cold Sore Cream

I awoke the other day and my lip was a bit numb, strange I thought, then went to make a cup of tea, and promptly forgot all about it, for a bit. I was a bit busy as my son was going in hospital the day after; I was concentrating more on keeping us all occupied, so the weird feeling in my lip was not of great relevance. The day passed I dropped the children at their dads for the night, then grumped about a bit and remembered my lip still felt very odd, but it was too late to do anything so after grumping about a bit more I went finally to bed.

The next day was a busy one, busy waiting in waiting rooms, hospital wards, hospital canteens, hospital wards, hospital canteens, you get the picture, course everything was hunkey dorey, my sons op went as planned I stopped grumping about a bit and concentrated on the after effects anaesthetic has on children (they grump about a lot, loudly). It was late, very late, by the time I left the hospital and very very early when I received a phone call to go back, so another day passed and I had yet again ignored my now itchy, burney lip with beautiful blisters.

However, the properties of anaesthetic having now worn off number one son and the fact he was out of bed and hopping about, meant the hospital were happy to send us on our way…..and so the finally, I was at last able to think about the now HUGE blisters all along my lip and doh! Of course! Cold Sore alias Herpes Simplex Virus!! Aha!!

So…..I went to Sainsburys and bought some Zovirax because rumour has it; tingling (which it was now plainly obvious what that weird lip feeling was) or blisters; this stuff will stop the need to wander around looking like a plague victim or having to pretend you’ve just bought a motorbike. So I bought some ignored the instructions and slapped some on my lip on a regular basis, probably every hour or so and certainly every time I’d had a cup of tea.

What I bought was a 2g tube in a large box with a stupid side that sticks up so it won’t fit in your handbag without ditching the packaging. There was a choice of pump action or an ordinary tube, the kind lady in Sainsburys recommended the tube rather than the pump action as the tube is £4.98 compared to £5.98 and as she so kindly pointed out, the tube is slightly cheaper only because it has a tendancy to spill its contents as you take the lid off (like you weren’t going to smother your lip with it anyway?) so I followed her advice and plumped for the non pump!

Now it says on the tube read the leaflet before use, I have to admit to not doing this, I thought the application would be sample, open, smother lip with the cream, job done. However there are things you probably, if you’re not me want to or need to know! You are supposed to apply it to the affected area 5 times a day and the active ingredient ‘aciclovir’ (an antiviral medicine) is then supposed to get to work treating the virus. There is other useful information contained in the instructions such as when you are/are not meant to use this medicine, where you are supposed to use it and where you should not even dream of putting it! There is also information about what the herpes simplex virus is and how it is transmitted.

I won’t bore you with the in depth details on type 1 and 2 herpes, kissing, sharing towels and common triggers for fresh outbreaks as you probably already know, though if you do need these details (don’t blame me I didn’t kiss you!) then you can always follow this helpful link http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/fact​s/coldsores.htm for anything you need to know.

Now….did it work or not? NO!!
I have to say I might as well have put my £4.98 towards a tub of Ben and Jerry’s it would have been very tasty and just as effective. Maybe this is because I didn’t use it immediately even though the packaging tells me otherwise, but either way my cold sore seems to have run the same course it would have without this treatment and eventually I went for the other method of cold sore remedy, picking the scabs!! – I don’t recommend this either because I just made my lip bleed and because I did it just before I went to sleep when I woke the following morning, my lips were firmly stuck together and I had to peel them apart, thus ending up with a bleeding lip again!!

My cold sore is slowly going, in fact maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and not don the paper bag with eyeholes but I can’t say thank you to Zovirax!!

If you do decide to try this product on your cold sore then I can say that once the packaging is removed it does fit handily in your bag, but don’t just chuck it in or you’ll spend hours trying to find it with the tube being so small. Also I didn’t find the fact that some of the cream escapes as you take the lid of a problem either, it’s probably about the amount you will need anyway.