I have suffered with cold sores all my life. There are school photographs of me grinning manically
at the camera and bearing the most awful looking chapped lips. Cold sores happened along in my teens and I
was treated to them regularly from then on and well into my twenties. When I was pregnant with our first child I
suffered one after the other for about a month until I discovered I was with
child. For the next three pregnancies
all I needed was tingling teeth plus a tingling lip to confirm the happy
news.
Regular and reoccurring breakouts of cold sores can be a
sign that your body is lacking an essential amino acid called Lysine. The body cannot manufacture this so we depend
on it from food. Taking Lysine
supplements can help rectify this deficiency.
But once the blister has formed there is nothing for it
except to wait the bastard out. It’s
gross, it’s downright painful and horribly unsightly. I was so embarrassed and self-conscious about
my breakouts.
Thankfully the virus calmed down in my thirties and my
attacks are less frequent today. But
they still occur.
Imagine my horror and upset when our eldest child started to
suffer. Looking at his toddler pictures,
he had one or two even back then.
The guilt I felt upon realising it was me who passed on the virus
knew no bounds.
Sugar is his main trigger.
I know following certain times of the year, Halloween, birthday parties,
Easter and other sugar filled festivals, he will be sporting a cold sore within
five days.
He made his First Holy Communion recently and I was Minding
Him. I needn’t have bothered.
Sods law saw to it that one appeared three
days before the day. I didn’t know
whether to be delighted or incensed when the photographer airbrushed the
offending blemish from his school photo.
(I was delighted!)
We discovered a fantastic cream that helps speed up the
recovery process a great deal. It is
called bio-propolis and available in your pharmacy or health food shop.
Then verruca’s put in a very unwelcome appearance.
I had one myself when I was in my late teens but didn’t know
what it was. After a couple of months of
increasing discomfort, I stuck a corn pad onto the lump on the sole of my
foot. It stuck hard and fast and offered
immediate relief.
Then something odd happened.
The skin around the corn pad started to lift and everything came away –
including the verruca and its dangling roots.
I know. Gross. Apologies.
But it was gone. Never to return.
Now both of my eldest boys are sporting verrucae.
Oh, cold sores and verruca’s are first cousins. Ain’t family grand?
My sister in law who is a podiatrist, enlightened me
about a product she has been recommending to her clients to treat this nuisance. She has received fantastic feedback regarding
repeated success.
This product is called Maximol. A liquid food supplement renowned for
boosting the immune system.
Adults take 15mls daily and children over the age of 4 take
7.5mls. It is a thousand times more
palatable if taken with a good splash of orange juice or whatever your
preferred morning juice might be.
I decided to join my boys in the taking of this magic
elixir. We are heading into our third
month now and at €35 per 500ml it ain’t cheap BUT oldest boys verruca has kind
of turned inside out.
To explain. It is not
like a hard lump anymore but has sort of burst open. So sorry for the graphic description but a
verruca is essentially a wart that grows from the inside out. And it has reached its out!!!!
The second boy’s verruca has taken off at a rate of knots
and is looking like it will need its own passport very soon. It has definitely “blossomed” at a much
faster rate than his older brothers and I am putting this down to him starting
the Magic Elixir sooner rather than later.
I am hoping for a death knell with oldest boys within the
next month.
And in other news where Maximol is concerned. Because I have been taking it with the boys I
can report that my sugar cravings have been noticeably weaker over the last two
months or so.
PLUS we ran out before the Easter holidays and I haven’t
been able to replace it as of yet. As a
result I have developed the nastiest, biggest and scariest looking cold sore in
YEARS on my chin.
Maybe it is a coincidence but I am attributing this alien
appearance on my face to the absence of Maximol.
It is an ongoing experiment but so far I like what it is
doing. And I plan to continue to use
it.
Once the boys’ verrucae are healed
they will stop taking it but I most certainly will continue to. Especially over the winter.
**** With three of
us partaking of 500mls we get approximately one month per bottle.
***** If you or other family members have a verruca please
note they are highly contagious. Little
shits! Don’t share towels or walk
about in bare feet.
****** It is rumoured that if you starve the verruca of air,
it doesn’t like it. So get cracking with
some heavy duty Elastoplast or duct tape and tape it down. Filing the pesky thing with a piece of emery
board keeps it in check too.
******* I have read (and heard) that verrucae are a feared
of banana skin. If you feel like a
little experiment, stick the teeniest tiniest piece of banana skin, white side
down, onto the imposter as you sleep.
******** It is also rumoured that over half of verrucae go
away of their own accord within a year.
FOOTNOTE: This post has been sitting waiting patiently to be published for over a month now. In that time, one of my boys can report a disappearing verruca. It is all but gone. Our local pharmacy was unable to supply us with Maximol for a month due to low stocks from the manufacturers. Three weeks on, there is a huge improvement in the verruca. I am expecting it to be gone completely by the end of the month!
