Ask & You Shall Receive: What's the best treatment for cold sores?

Last week I posted up a list of my yet to be answered Ask and you Shall Receive queries. One of them was from a regular sufferer of cold sore who wanted to know if we had any tips on avoiding outbreaks.  I have to admit my knowledge of cold sore treatments more or less ended with Zovirax and that's why I was really glad to get an email from Ruth in Galway who gave us loads of tips and strategies. Over to you Ruth:

• Take the supplement L-Lysine (it is an amino acid) which can reduce the number of outbreaks and speed up the healing process if a breakout occurs. Take 1000mg of L-Lysine daily as a preventative. I use the Solgar brand of L-Lysine which costs about €8.95 from health food shops.  I have been taking L-Lysine for over a year now and have not had one attack (hope i dont jinx myself here). I know how painful and horrible they are and hope these tips will help others in the same boat
• Take some extra Vitamin C as this has been shown to stop the virus growing
• Avoid foods containin high amounts of Arganine (another amino acid) which is found in chocolate, nuts and some other foods (lists are available on the net) as this can also help to reduce outbreaks.  Large amounts of Arganine can trigger an attack

To speed up healing

• If an outbreak occurs take  1000mg of L-Lysine 3 times daily to speed up the healing
• use your normal Cold Sore medication such as Zovirax or similar
• Stay away from foods containing Arganine

Thanks a million Ruth! If anyone has any more tips we'd love to hear them.  And if you spot any Ask and You Shall Recieve queries that you think you might be able to help us with we'd be delighted to hear from you!