Should you visit the dentist with a cold sore?

Perhaps you have toothache, a crown that has come loose, your wisdom teeth are threatening to erupt or maybe you are simply desperately in need of a check-up. Whatever the case, you need to go to the dentist, have finally managed to get an appointment and have even arranged to have some time off work in order to go to the trouble.

But there's one problem: you have a cold sore, and despite applying your tube of clinically proven cold sore cream, the lesion still lingers. What do you do? Well, we're sorry to break this to you but your dentist will not be keen on treating you while your cold sore is still active.

In fact, all but the most serious emergency dental treatments need to deferred in these situations. This is not simply prejudice against unsightly sores: by going to the dentist with an active lesion you not only place your dentist and her assistant at risk of infection, you also place yourself at risk of possible reinfection.

This is why dentists advise that sufferers of the Herpes Simplex Type 1 (HSV-1) virus wait until they have successfully treated their lesions with their choice of best cold sore cream before they attend appointments. Once you think about it, this may not be such a bad thing anyway: cold sores can be painful when cracked or bleeding and crusting blisters are no fun to have when you are painfully opening your mouth cavernously wide while under the glare of the dentist's forensic light.

It is also worth remembering that the virus can become worse when you are under stress, and there are few professional appointments as stressful as a mouth-stretching session at the dentist. It is also a good idea to consider that although cases of retransmission to other parts of the body are rare, it does happen and in order to reduce this possibility, you best avoid the dentist.

As for worries about upsetting your dentist or being charged a cancellation fee; try and give them good notice so that they have ample time to fill your appointment space with another patient. Even if you need to cancel at short notice, as long as you are apologetic and explain the circumstance, you should not have any trouble. After all, it is not your fault. And while you're waiting, keep remembering to apply Herstat, one of the best cold sore creams money can buy.

Research Further Reveals Cold Sore Virus's Intelligence

The cold sore virus is mysterious and confounding even to those sufferers who are likely to understand its makeup and pathology. For example, the way the virus lurks waiting to break out when you are under stress or at a low ebb, leaving you to reach out for your cold sore cream at a time when you'd rather be getting on with something else.

It is this characteristic of the cold sore virus, the way it hibernates in the body, that has also long perplexed scientists. However, now researchers at Harvard Medical School have demonstrated how the Herpes Simplex Virus 1 manipulates a host protein called CTCF in order to sleep quietly before breaking out, usually at the most inopportune moment possible.

Read more: Research Further Reveals Cold Sore Virus's Intelligence

Cold Sores Still Common in US

If you thought our cold, wet and windy climate meant that the cold sore virus was particular to these island shores, think again.

Even those living in the United States – the land of sun-drenched Californian coastlines, Texan deserts and generalised middle American heat haze – are prone to the virus and, consequently, the search for the best possible cold sore treatment.

And we can back these claims up with science too. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) recently reported that nearly half (48 percent) of Americans aged 14 to 49 carry herpes simplex 1 (HSV-1), the virus responsible for cold sore outbreaks.

In fact, the virus is very common among those 49 and over, with the NCHS reporting that nearly 60 percent of people carry the virus.

The good news though is that fewer people are being forced to reach for the nearest tube of cold sore treatment than at the turn of the millennium; in the year 2000 more than 59 percent of over 14 year-old's were reported to suffer from the virus, meaning there has been an 11 percent drop in cold sore cases in the intervening 17 years.

It is interesting to wonder whether the fall in reported cold sore cases comes about as a result of public health policy, improved hygiene, improve diet or perhaps even some lessening in the virulence of cold sore strains.

What we do know, however, is that the cold sore virus prospers and proliferates as a result of close contact between people and that it has a predilection for life in the moist surfaces of the mucosal membranes that make up the surface of the lips, mouth and nose.

It is also known that the cold sore virus can be passed between people even when they do not exhibit symptoms. It is also known that sufferers with the most acute sores can derive benefit from strong antiviral drugs. However, for the rest of us, we should simply try and eat well, get plenty of exercise and ensure that we take our chosen cold sore treatment whenever needed.