Cold Sores
Natural Remedies

Cold Sore Relief: Top Natural Remedies

The comments below reflect the personal experiences and opinions of readers and do not represent medical advice or the views of this website. The information shared has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or health condition. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical concerns.
Lemon Balm
Posted by G (Auckland, New Zealand) on 03/24/2018
★★★★★

Lemon balm tincture worked for me. I'm 51, female and have had a recurring cold sore for about 10 years on my bottom lip.Sometimes I would get it maybe once or twice a year, and other times I would get it nearly every month.

I could only find the tincture, not the oil on a Friday night after watching on youtube about cold sore remedies. So I applied it by q tip on the newly and quickly developing cold sore for about a minute. Then I dropped a couple of mls or so into my green tea and drank it. I did this a few times over the weekend. The cold sore didn't develop any more and was totally gone in 3 days. I've tried heaps of remedies over the 10 years and this was the first time I've succeeded in getting instant results. I've had 2 recurrences since then and applied the lemon balm with immediate results again. Lemon balm oil would probably work too but I couldn't find it at the time. I've since realised that it's called by it's latin name Melissa officinalis on the essential oil bottle at my local organics shop.

I hope this helps someone else.


Lemon Balm
Posted by Cris01us (Honolulu) on 07/07/2017
★★★★★

You are spot on. Lemon Balm is my main weapon now (liquid form with dropper). I also take coconut oil (1000-5000mg) depending on how I feel, and having enough Zinc is also key. I rotate in Echinacea with Goldenseal every so often and always take L-Lysine. Thanks for sharing!


Lemon Balm
Posted by Cris01us (Honolulu) on 07/07/2017
★★★★★

Editor's Choice

So I have tried many many things for the past three years to deal with embarrassing cold sores and surprisingly most are listed on this site and most do in fact work to some degree or another.

For instance, on a 1-10 scale with 10 being awesome: 1. ACV applied (3) 2. Acetone applied (6) 3. Ice applied (4) 4. L-Lysine taken (5) 5. Earwax applied (7) (hey when your desperate you'll try anything! ) 6. Zinc taken (3) 7. Lemon Balm (9)!!! 8. Organic Oregano Oil applied (7) (if the right strength is applied enough) 9. Tea Tree Oil applied (5) 10. Tea bag applied (2)

If you are reading this and looking for some relief then you have probably read a ton of others too, and what you should have noticed by now is that no one thing by itself is probably going to be a silver bullet. What I have found that works for me is: Lemon Balm oil (1oz bottle with dropper) apply to q-tip and hold that on the spot for 1-5 minutes at a time, do as often as needed through out the day. If done at the very first sign this is amazing with helping slow everything down. Then up the L-lysine to 3000mg (1000 each dose). Drink plenty of water - the body needs it! Eat healthy (I even fasted for a day once and it helped).

Take a zinc supplement and make sure your getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs and plenty of rest. I also have tried BHT and I think it helps....but that's not natural and is very controversial in this kind of community.

Mistakes: too strong of OOO - I burned my lip and it took as long to heal as it would have the cold sore (but it worked the sores were gone the next day)! . Topical Zinc Sulfate - also burns. TTO applied too often - burns and stops working after a while. Really in most mistakes it comes down to overdoing it. I know we all want it gone yesterday but NOTHING is going to do that so have a little patience. Best of luck!


Lemon Balm
Posted by Crys (Ventura, Ca) on 07/15/2012
★★★★★

YAY! It worked great!


Lemon Balm
Posted by Angela (Brisbane, Qld, Australia) on 05/17/2012
★★★★★

I have tried a number of remedies for cold sores with no success: ice, apple cider vinegar, lysine (was ok), crystal salt deoderant (only helped the blister dry up). I get cold sores every couple of months so was very keen to find a good cure. I recently attended a medicinal herb workshop and was told to try lemon balm. I happen to grow it in my garden so I made a tea of it and have been drinking it 3 times per day. I found that within a day the cold sore I had went down and all pain subsided. It is now healing well. Additionally I have put some goldenseal ointment onto the healing sore and that is also clearing up a lot faster than normal. The teacher at the herb workshop said her husband use to get regular cold sores and he now drinks lemon balm tea often. He has not had a cold sore in years.



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