Everything happens when we don’t want it to happen. I seem to get cold sores (or, as some call them, “fever blisters”) at the worst possible times. For those who don’t know what a cold sore is, it is caused by stress, contact with someone who has a cold sore, having a fever, or many other reasons. I went my whole life without having a major outbreak. By major, I mean I’ve had one or two at a time, but recently, it’s been multiples (3+ at a time) and by recently, I mean since this semester has started. I know some people get them more frequently than I do, and I feel really bad for those people. At the beginning of this semester, I guess I was stressed out way back in September, and I didn’t realize just how worried I was to start my final year here at Seneca, so I had an outbreak, which was not fun. Usually, I would use topical creams like Clera or cover it with a pimple patch to stop the spread, but these only worsened. Usually, for me, cold sores pop up and hurt a bit. I put a patch or cream on and let it dry out. Then, I’m all back to normal a week or so later. For this case it was not as easy and painless. The first day it popped up, it was already growing exponentially, and by day two, I looked like, as my friend had called it, “lip filler gone wrong” or right, depending on what look you’re going for. I had gone to my doctor to try to get him to give me something to make them go away because, by day 3, they were huge and painful. Luckily, I was given valacyclovir (the oral antibiotic) and acyclovir (the topical antibiotic), which help heal cold sores quickly(or so they say). At the time (and because I had eight huge ones), it took around a week and a half to get rid of them all with the antibiotics. I know you might be wondering, “Catherine, why are you bringing up September in December?” that would be a great question. Well, welcome to my second cold sore outbreak this semester. I didn’t see this one coming. I probably should’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t. The reason I say that is because the semester is coming to an end, which is a stressful time for assignments and all of that, but also, it’s the holidays starting, and that is also very stressful, and on top of all that I won’t see some people who I want to see because they won’t be around for the holidays this year.
Right now, I am on day two of cold sore round two of semester one of the second year. This is not my favourite thing to ever happen, especially because the class likes to take final week pictures with the professors, and I just hope I caught it early enough that they go away within the next few days. Yesterday, three decided to pop up periodically throughout the day. It started with two when I first woke up around 6 am, so I took the valacyclovir dose my doctor gave me for the next time it happened, and it looked like it did start to work. Throughout the day, I also used the acyclovir that he gave me to try to stop it before it got too bad and try to get it to go away before it really started to show up. I think it worked for the most part. Right now, my lips are really dry (you want cold sores to dry out so they don’t spread and they heal), but I have also been applying the acyclovir when I wake up and every so often when I feel the need to reapply it. I do hope they are gone or almost gone because I do not like having a cold sore, but I also don’t like dry lips, so it’s awful for me right now to have both. Overall, I just want the cold sores to be gone, and I hate getting them because they bother me so much just by being there. I hate them so much, and honestly, I have not met anyone who likes getting cold sores or anything that comes with cold sores. I just hope no one gets cold sores because they suck, and I don’t wish these on my worst enemy.
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