Coping With The Causes of Cold Sores

What causes cold sores to happen often for some people and not at all for others?

You will see, in the following article, what the three main causes of cold sores are and how to easily prevent your future cold sore outbreaks.

Cold sores are caused by the replication process of the herpes simplex virus. Most of your life the virus is dormant and hibernating in the nerve cell roots - called the nerve ganglia. When the cold sore virus senses a change in your immune system and will take the opportunity to causing yet another cold sore.

The cold sore virus has a very clever early warning system because it lives in your nerve cells. To discover what causes cold sores is simply to understand what the basic triggers that encourages the cold sore virus to begin its replication process.

These are the top three cold sore triggers that you should know about.

1. YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. If you are normal and healthy, your immune system can keep the virus that causes cold sores asleep indefinitely. The quality and quantity of vitamins and minerals that you obtain from food and supplements will determine, in a large degree, how resistant you will be to cold sore outbreaks.

If you get cold sores frequently, the first thing you should do is address your nutritional intake. Increase vegetable and fruit intake. Most importantly, start taking a good quality multi-vitamin. This is a must for today's busy life - and it helps make up for the lack of nutrients in the commercial foods we get now.

2. YOUR LYSINE AND ARGININE BALANCE. These two much talked about amino acids have a strong involvement in causing cold sores. High amounts of arginine in the cells encourages cold sore virus to replicate because it is an important ingredient in the new virus.

Your cells utilize many different amino acids for different purposes. Lysine and arginine are always fighting for the same storage space in the nerve cell. The more lysine and the less arginine you consume in your daily diet, the higher the quantity of lysine in your cells. Since lysine does not support virus replication, you can create immunity to the virus that causes cold sores.

3. HOW ACID OR ALKALINE ARE YOU? The herpes virus prefers an acid area for the creation of new virus. The pH scale runs from 1 through 14 with 7 being neutral. Less than 7 and your body starts to become acidified. The ideal pH your body strives for is 7.4 which is slightly alkaline. If you could keep it there, you likely never get sick from any viral or bacterial infection.

Your body usually keeps your pH in a very tight range of 6.5 to 7.4. Do not go crazy on this but keep in mind that most vegetables and fruits will help your body maintain a good pH balance. Do not use this as an excuse to go vegetarian. Carbonated soda and beer are strong contributors to an acid situation in your body - often causing cold sores.

Have you heard that stress causes cold sores? Well it is true.

Why did I wait until now to mention it? Mainly because it is important to understand that it is not stress itself that causes cold sores, but what it does to the body. When you feel any stress, your body tends to go toward the acid side, which causes cold sores.

Stress consumes large quantities of nutrients that your immune system needs to stay vital. The B and C vitamins in particular are used up rapidly. These are known as the stress vitamins and are critical for defense against cold sores. Also, calcium is depleted as the stress causes the body to move toward the acid side. You can see, now, how stress causes cold sores.

Mental and physical stress are equal in causing cold sores. Mental stress sometimes is even worse. It is amazing how many brides, or soon to be mothers, will come down with cold sores. Other stresses that create cold sores fast are head colds, fevers, problems with people in your life and too much sun on that part of the face.

As you have discovered, the real causes of cold sores are based on the strength of your immune system and your physical health. You also learned the real reason stress causes cold sores. With the information, I hope that you will be able to build a physical strength that will repel cold sores for life.