When you feel the tingle it's time for...

What tingle? The annoying and partly terrifying tingle that signals the imminent arrival of a cold sore.  I have had cold sores ever since I was in Standard 4 and ever since then, I have had people give me all sorts of tips on how to get rid of them.  Now, back in the early days - one of the first 'cures' I was told of was to use perfume - on a hanky or tissue.  Anyone who has ever had a cold sore would know that dabbing perfume on your cold sore would hurt like hell and it sure did.  I think that the person who gave me this tip may have not liked me very much.  The outcome of this method? See pictures below:

What my cold sore looked like before the 'perfume' cure

What it looked like 'After' dabbing liberally with perfume

The second time I had a cold sore, I was told to go to a certain fofo (traditional healer) in our village who lived behind our church for a cure.  I had to use an umbrella for 2 weeks (on sunny days as well as rainy ones - anyone who has lived in Samoa will understand why) and I was even given a white cloth which the fofo used to press on the cold sore (atiloto) a number of times before the grand finale - making the sign of the cross in the air in front of my face over the cold sore.  On the last day of my treatment, I was instructed to burn the white cloth used in the fofo and that would ensure that I would never get another one again. I burnt the cloth as ordered truly believing that the treatment worked.  You can imagine my surprise and disappointment when I got another cold sore a few months later.  So much for traditional healing : (

The worst part of having a cold sore is that it looks worse than it feels.  In my line of work, having a cold sore gets me nothing but grief and lots of rude comments from teenagers ranging from e.g " What's that on your lip?" to "Miss, that looks like a moustache!" to the downright rude "Ooh, who have you been giving head to Miss?".   To cut a long story short - I absolutely HATE getting cold sores!

I have been pretty run down lately after being sick and the whole family being sick so no surprises at the tingling feeling I got a couple of days ago signalling the start of yet another cold sore.  Thank goodness I had read a health magazine a week ago and seen an ad for a one dose treatment that you could take that could stop a cold sore from even erupting!

• Tingling sensation started at 8.30pm and my husband had taken the car to go visit a friend and watch the rugby (as I had cancelled our Sky Sports channel).  
• Rang the After Hours Pharmacy to ask if they stocked the one dose cold sore medicine and they said they had it and that they closed at 10pm.  Tingling getting worse.
• Rang Sky T.V, cancelled the Soho channel (BORING) and ordered Sky Sports and the Rugby Channel ($1 each for the month).  Tingling sensation turning into a burning sensation.
• Rang my hubby and told him to get home because I needed the car to get my medicine from the pharmacy.  He sounded very reluctant to come home so when I told him that we now had Sky Sports, he told me he would be home asap.  Area on top lip starting to look red and swelling a little bit - getting really anxious now! 
• Husband arrived home - practically pulled him out of the driver's seat, jumped in and raced to the Afterhours pharmacy and bought Famvir Once.  Took the 3 pills inside the pack all at once with a glass of water and waited.
• Twenty minutes later - the tingling had stopped! Burning stopped.
• Hour later - no more redness and swelling has totally gone down.
• Two days later - nothing!!!! Absolutely no cold sore at all. 
• Famvir Once works! It cost me $33 but I would rather spend that amount and avoid the messy creams, the physical pain and the shame of having to deal with unwanted comments from certain young people.  

So, if you have a tendency to get cold sores, atiloto then please give this medicine a try.  I am not even getting paid to endorse this product (darn!) but it's nice to find products that really deliver what they promise.  Whatever you do, don't ever put perfume on your cold sore - it stings like a 'beach' lol

What crazy cures have you been given and actually tried? Feel free to share - hopefully they worked!