A New Holistic Treatment Protocol for Herpes and Cold Sores   by christopher scipio

800,000 people or more will contract Genital
and Oral Herpes (Herpes 1 and 2) this year in North America alone. It`s
estimated that 60% of the population has Herpes. A majority of the
people with the disease are unaware that they carry the virus- making
them much more likely to pass it on to others. With so many people
affected by this epidemic, it`s a wonder that Herpes doesn`t get more
media attention. It`s been labeled an incurable disease which left
untreated can have serious consequences such as the death of a infant
born to a mother having an outbreak during delivery and vastly
increasing one`s chances of getting AIDS and other opportunistic
infections.

The sad fact is that there`s still a pervasive
wall of shame and silence over this disease. People are much more
likely to publicly declare their HIV positive status than admit to
having Herpes. There are numerous charities and foundations with their
high-profile celebrity spokespersons leading the very public campaign
of AIDS awareness and research. There`s an ever increasing amount of
sympathy and support for AIDS victims from the general public. But I
challenge you to name a public spokesperson for Herpes? Better yet, can
anyone even name one single Herpes charity? I`m sure they exist, but
their public profiles are next to nonexistent. Have you ever seen a
telethon to raise money for Herpes research? It`s inconceivable to me
why Herpes is treated as such a `dirty` disease. Is it the modern
leprosy? I have worked with many Herpes sufferers who do not tell their
lovers of their status for fear of being rejected. I`m not sure what
the answer would be to gaining more support and sympathy for the
sufferers of Herpes, but it`s something we could all work on.

The Acyclovir family of drugs-including Valtrex
and Famvir, has been the long standing therapy prescribed by doctors
for the treatment of Herpes 1 and 2. Although the drug has proven
itself to be somewhat effective in the reduction of the duration and
severity of outbreaks when used topically and in the suppression of
some outbreaks when taken orally, this effectiveness can come with a
steep price.

Acyclovir does not cure Herpes, and must be
taken indefinitely. Like many other drugs there are serious possible
side-effects, including kidney dysfunction, toxicity in the nervous
system, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea seizures, confusion and tremors,
severe headaches. Beyond these perhaps the biggest problem with taking
these drugs for Herpes is the creation of drug-resistant strains of the
virus that will make treating people in the future much more difficult.

I have been using natural remedies to help
people suffering with Herpes for fourteen years now. One of the
principle natural tools used in controlling Herpes has been L-lysine-an
amino acid that has been proven to reduce the frequency of outbreak in
some people. Unfortunately L-lysine has now been shown to have it`s own
serious side-effect. Since it`s main action is to inhibit arginine in
the cellular environment, the long term effect of taking L-lysine is
the lowering of the body`s immune function. Which is a less than a
desirable outcome.

Part
Two:

A Comprehensive Programme for Managing Herpes Safely and Effectively

Fifteen years ago I contracted Herpes myself in
the context of a monogamous relationship. Being open-minded and
desperate I tried drug therapy and immediately got migraine headaches
for the first time in my life. It was clear that I had to find a
natural way of managing the disease for myself since I was going to
have it for the rest of my life and I needed a way of being able to
resume my sex life without the dread of the likelihood of passing it on
to others. In the next two years I tried every natural therapy
available at the time. Frustrated from the lack of consistent and
lasting results from most of the touted natural remedies for Herpes I
started developing my own treatment programme based on my families
multi-generational background as herbalists.



What I found through my experience is that Herpes needs to be addressed
on many levels- obviously nutrition and lifestyle changes/adjustments
but that also the deep shame and many psychological effects of the
disease are equally if not more important to treat than outbreaks.
Herpes also can change quite significantly during the course of
someone`s history with the disease so any protocol would have to be
flexible enough to deal with the evolutionary nature of the presenting
symptoms.

I also don`t believe in the validity of
suppressive therapy for Herpes. I think suppression inevitably leads to
the disease expressing itself in other ways-ways that may be more
devastating than conventional outbreaks- so the protocol is not
designed to suppress outbreaks altogether but rather to lengthen the
period of time between outbreaks and to shorten their duration and
greatly lessen their severity. Some people have had their average
duration of outbreaks reduced from 12-16 days to 1 to 2 days. Some
people have been able to prevent most outbreaks from re-occouring