CoyoteCat

@WCSDancer2010, Thanks for the advice and suggestions. I am checking out all that you wrote...there really are a lot of options out there. Thanks again.

I have an appointment with my regular doctor Friday afternoon and I will ask her for daily suppression because I am tired of this. I have been trying to see what is different in my life but I cannot think of anything. I have been under more stress than this at times and I have not broken out. Maybe the herpes viruses mutates? I don't know. I have been resting and taking it easy. When you have a concussion, you have to rest mentally as well as physically to avoid getting worse. The urgent care doctor also said that if I suffer another blow to my head again before I am healed from this concussion that I could get permanent brain damage or go into a coma. So, I am resting in bed and taking it very easy. I work for myself so i can do this thank goodness. I never cared for alcohol so I don't have much of that at all..only a little wine to celebrate sometimes....sometimes a little vodka but I hate beer. I will have to work on the chocolate thing though! I am still going to keep looking at my diet and life to see what is going on. I haven't been eating much because my mouth hurts but I have been taking lysine and eating applesauce and hot cereals because I need something in my body with the pain pills.I am going to talk to my doctor tomorrow about a good multivitamin. I talked to my wife about how embarrassed the sores made me and how I feel gross...like a walking disease. I started crying which is something I haven't done in ages. She just hugged me and told me that I was not disgusting or ugly at all to her or any other reasonable person. She said we are our own worst critics....if I see someone with a cold sore, I wouldn't say anything about it and if I did think something about it, I'd be like "oh, that looks painful...poor him". But, if someone sees me with a cold sore, I think they are thinking that I am dirty and disgusting. I am thinking the worst when it comes to myself. We can be cruel to ourselves. I didn't want to push my wife away at all. She is very kind to me when I am ill like this. I haven't felt much like sex at all (i.e. tired, head feels like 2 sumo wrestlers are break dancing in it) but we will cuddle or I will have my head in her lap or something. I don't really feel that I need to hide my face around her. Anyway, you are right and your response did make me feel a lot better. I am definitely going to make sure that I really push for the daily suppression because trying to catch it at the "tingle" clearly isn't working for me because the time between "tingle" and "sore" is so fast for me. And I cannot keep having cold sore outbreaks so bad that they cause me to black out. I could seriously injure or kill myself or someone else. Thanks so much for your reply and I hope that your situation improves too!

I have HSV 1. I have been getting cold sores for about 3-4 years but at first they were not that bad or that often. Now, the outbreaks are more frequent and I am quite ashamed of the sores. A lot of people who get cold sores say that they only got "really sick" the first time they had an outbreak. It is getting to the point that every time I have a cold sore, I get swollen glands, headaches, fever and tiredness (not to mention the painful sores). Does this happen to other people who get cold sores? Most other people who get them say that they just have the sore. They don't have the whole body sickness like I get. The last episode was pretty awful. I broke out with the blister and developed a fever and weakness. I tried to get up and go to the bathroom and I blacked out. I hit the back of my head on the sink and gave myself a concussion. My wife heard the commotion and helped me up and got me to an urgent care center (I did not want to go hospital). The doctors there felt that this response to herpes virus was severe so they gave me an HIV test to see if my immunity was low due to that (I don't have HIV like I told them--but they just were surprised at how my body reacts to the virus). I was put on generic Valtrex and given something for the pain and fever. I am home resting in bed. Physically, I feel better. But worse than that, is the emotional issue. I don't really like to talk about my feelings much. But, I feel so embarrassed when I get cold sores. I feel disgusting and dirty and my self esteem is very low. It is hard to be intimate with my wife because I feel gross and I don't even want her looking at me. I just want to hide. I know that she knows that I am acting differently...she has not changed. She is beautiful and I love being with her. I just feel so gross that it is hard to feel sexual with someone. Physically and mentally I am exhausted. The doctor wanted me resting anyway due to the concussion and if I get any worse, I have to go to a regular hospital.