Advice on keeping blister clean

[Schwittm]

Help. Newbie here with my primary outbreak. I'm reaching the stage where the blisters are starting to pop and get pus everywhere and some are beginning to scab over. Any advice on what to do to keep these areas clean?

I don't want to do the wrong thing and make it worse because trust me I am miserable enough! Do I clean with water saline solution etc? 

Also anyone use essential oils/acupuncture/Chinese medicine/homeopathy for their condition? If so, could you please tell me what you did and how it helped or hindered your outbreak? I am a huge proponent in alternative medicine (going into chiropractic myself). I'm definitely sticking to the antiviral medication prescribed to me but I'm wondering if there's anything I can todo to integrate the two modalities?

Thanks in advance.

[Sanguine108]

Keep it dry. Some women use a pad during the beginning for this.  Saline soln sounds alright.

Yin Care is a great topical wash.  soak a cotton ball and dab it on your bits.  It will dry up and cancel the nonsense downstairs.   It's a patent Trad Chinese Med (TCM) formula.  It's for all pussy (as in pus-like), inflammatory issues as well as other somewhat related issues.  The pdf has some research they've done w patients in a hospital in China.   The treatment and diagnostic principles are pretty straight forward.  Things that are inflammatory are hot, stuff that creates pus or abscess is damp.  HSV is a retained damp-heat condition/pathogen so herbs that clear heat/inflammation and dry/clear dampness are used.  Yin Care is all about that.  It's also meant as a panacea for female reproductive issues.

https://www.amazon.com/Arbor-International-Herbal-3-4oz-100ml/dp/B0009Y2EVK

http://www.acupuncture-atlanta.com/articles/YinCare_Instructions.pdf

I think acupuncture is great and it definitely will help but I think finding a Chinese Med practitioner who has herbal medicine experience/practice is much more powerful.   Most Chinese Med practitoners/acupuncturists have herbal medicine knowledge but it's very expensive to have an herb med practice where they're making custom formulas.   If they're able to sustain a practice making custom formulas then that's a good sign.  Also, some have raw herb while others have herbs in granule extract form.  Raw herbs take 20-30 min to prep/decoct whereas granules are convenient, ready to go and take when needed.   Depending on the practitioner, they'll favor one or the other.   ... Personally, I'd rather have granules.   Also, I received acupuncture in the beginning and it helped me a lot.  That particular practitioner had a different way of assessing for herbs and the patent formulas he gave me didn't agree with me.  I found another practitioner and she helped me out with herbs quite a bit.

But yeah, primary infection is the worst and it will get better in time. Rx antivirals helped me but also left me feeling a tad out of sorts and made my back/kidneys hurts (last floating rib area pain), so I ain't about to make that a habit.  I remember looking for relief in the beginning, looking for cooling herbs and found a sleepy time tea that had a bunch of cooling herbs in it.  I felt normal the next day.   Later on, I realized nervines are a big thing for hsv, since hsv is a chronic inflammatory condition of the nervous system.  ...Nervines are herbs that target nerves and, from a TCM standpoint, most clear heat and have some restorative function for nerves.  Some herbs have an immune tonifying effect so the turnover time for building antibodies is decreased significantly.   ...Trying to think what else would be informative/helpful for you...   The liver!!!  The liver channel is associated with the genitalia.  The TCM herbs and formulas that are catered towards genital herpes all focus on clearing heat from the liver channel.  Japanese knotweed (polygonum cuspidatum) is a famous Chinese herb used for treating venereal infections. J. knotweed clears damp-heat from the liver channel and the pelvic-genital area.  I'm not saying you should take this as a stand-alone herb because TCM relies on balancing herb qualities within a formula.  Speaking from personal experience, in my beginnings with this, I had this nagging, twisting sensation in my testicles (yeah, I know).  I was over at my folks' place and dad had this resveratrol supplement, which was derived from Japanese knotweed.  They'll use J. knotweed instead of grapes bc it's cheaper and there's more resveratrol in j. knotweed.  I went out on a limb and tried it.  Literally felt like my junk was roto-rooted clear.  It was wild. 

Getting under the care of a practitioner is the best thing to working this out.   Understanding basic TCM diagnostic and treatment principles will help in deciphering what herbs are appropriate for what 'you' have going on.

I also tried some homeopathy.  It helped a bit.   The nosodes were the most helpful.  I don't take them anymore but they did wonders in the beginning.  Again, check with a practitioner and get multiple opinions on that.  There's going to be people who think it's all voodoo, quack science while others vouch strongly for it.   

....To treat things holistically you treat the root of the issue and the branch manifestations.  Some people think that a vaccine will cure them of everything but maybe there's some inflammatory damage causing lingering pain, so that might be addressed in another way.  So much to say on this. I'm gonna stop here. Let me know if you have any questions.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Sanguine108

[Schwittm]

@Sanguine108 wow, thank you so much! So thorough and I really appreciate it. I've got an awesome acupuncturist that uses a lot of the raw herbs and that's helped with any condition. I'll definitely be headed down that route to get some relief.

thank you so much. :-) 

[SZN1023]

Hi- Late to the party on this thread, but throwing in my 2 cents. I just started acupuncture because I want to get off the Valtrex suppressive therapy I've been doing for 8+ years now. I can't find any conclusive evidence of kidney damage for long-term use, but I can't believe it's good to be on antivirals for this long. We'll see...  If nothing else, it is relaxing. As far as the blisters, I find witch hazel or (believe it or not) Sea Breeze astringent - couldn't believe they still make that stuff! - work well for drying things out or preventing a potential full-blown outbreak. The trick is to leave it on for a few minutes. I wad up a cotton pad and "tuck" it in around my prone areas while I'm blow-drying my hair. Multi-tasking!  That followed by a dab of straight tea tree oil works well for me, at least.