Cold sores are caused by the herpes simplex virus, a common and infectious virus which is usually contacted during childhood and hides in the nerve ganglia near where your cold sore usually appears. The virus can remain dormant for months or years without reappearing, until your body becomes unbalanced. Your natural body defenses keep the virus in check until your defenses drop because you may feel tired, upset or stressed; you resistance is lowered, you have a fever, overexposure to the sun or wind, or maybe you are menstruating, and suddenly you feel that familiar tingling sensation.
This is when the virus is moving down your nerve fibers to the skin surface. Now you feel the tingling, itching, perhaps burning or drying sensations, lasting a few hours or a few days, to be followed by redness and swelling at the cold sore site; the virus is reproducing.
Next is the appearance of clusters of small blisters that are painfully sensitive, followed by all the blisters joining to become one large open, weeping sore. This is the most painful and most contagious stage, although next is when it starts to crust over and heal. At this stage it is painful because any...