Cold sores affect 30 million people in the UK and are often caught from kissing.
Cold sores are only contagious when they are active so kissing someone with a visible cold sore increases your risk of catching the virus
Sam Robinson, 44, a PA fromWatford, caught cold sores from her first kiss.
Sam says;
I caught cold sores from kissing a boy at Christmas time when I was sixteen years old. He had a cold sore at the time and my mother warned me not to kiss him. But like most 16 year old girls I ignored my mother’s advice and I have suffered from regular cold sore outbreaks ever since.
These days I usually can’t have a kiss with my husband under the mistletoe because I tend to get cold sores at Christmas time and he, quite rightly, refuses to kiss me when I have a cold sore. So you could say that that first kiss has ruined all my romantic Christmases ever since!
I usually get cold sores for two weeks and I get them every two months. However my cold sores are linked to stress and a few years ago a had a bad patch financially and I got a lot more cold sores than I normally do. I get a lot of cold sores in winter in fact often I feel a cold coming on and then I get a cold sore. I get chapped lips and as soon as I get dry lips a cold sore breaks out.
[quote]I almost always get them at Christmas time. It’s the combination of stress and cold weather that makes Christmas a danger zone for a cold sore outbreak for me.[/quote]
Last Christmas I had a really bad break out two weeks before Christmas and it just didn’t go away and I had to spend the whole of Christmas at an arms length from my husband. When I have a cold sore outbreak I can’t be intimate with him and we have to use separate towels and keep lips as separate from him as possible.
It makes Christmas relay miserable as I feel like an outcast. It’s a time when me and husband actually get to spend some time together as we both love Christmas and take holidays to be with family and friends and yet I can often never get close to him. It realy does ruin my enjoyment of Christmas most years.
[quote]I have tried everything for my cold sores like Virax, which didn’t work at all. I even tried Iodine and toothpaste on my cold sores to try and get rid of them. Nothing worked until someone recommended that I try Liquorice and Melissa Rescue Lip Gel from Skin Shop.[/quote]
The lip gel worked immediately my cold sores duration have been cut down by over 50%. I used to get them for two weeks sometimes more. Now my cold sores last for only five to six days. Also the sores themselves are much less aggressive. I used to only get one or maybe two but they would become huge, like great open weeping sores that would take up half my lip. Now I only tend to get one small sores that doesn’t get swollen or blistered and goes away pretty quickly. If I use make up you can almost not see the cold sore as its so small, where as before people would be unable to avert their gaze from my cold sores as they were so huge and looked so awful.
I call Liquorice & Melissa Lip Gel my 'magic' cream. I never go anywhere without it now. I have got plenty of stock, I keep one in my desk drawer at work, one at home and one in my handbag at all times!
I am hoping that this Christmas with my lip gel at hand I might escape having a cold sore and actually be able to give my husband a lovely big kiss under the mistletoe this year, which really would make this the best Christmas ever.
Click here to read our review of Liquorice and Melissa Rescue Lip gel
