lysine for herpes

nutrition-vs-pills - herpes treatment - treatment for Herpes

Understanding Your Options for Herpes Treatment

Understanding Your Options for Herpes Treatment

Herpes has been around practically since the dawn of humankind.  Modern (a.k.a. “Western”) medicine has been around since the late 1700’s.  Traditional medicine has been around at least for a couple of thousand years, if not longer; and the use of botanical (plant) remedies dates back at least 60,000 years according to the University of Minnesota.


Pharmaceuticals

When we have been diagnosed with herpes, most of us are offered pharmaceuticals to help calm an outbreak or use as a prophylactic so we do not give it to a sexual partner.  Commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals for herpes include Acyclovir (Zovirax), Famcyclovir (Famvir), and Valacyclovir (Valtrex).

Pharmaceuticals can help with an outbreak once you have it, but they cannot make the outbreak just “go away.”  Once an outbreak has begun, it has to run its course.  Taking a pharmaceutical can reduce the duration and severity of the outbreak, but the efficacy can vary dramatically from one person to the next.  That means that it may help one person significantly more than it helps the next.

In terms of prophylaxis (prevention), pharmaceuticals are not recommended for long-term use due to potential harm to the kidneys.  For people with herpes who are sexually active with a partner who does not have herpes, this causes an ethical dilemma.  Do you put your own health at risk by taking antiviral pharmaceuticals long-term, or do you stop taking them and put your partner at a higher risk for contracting herpes?

Technically, most otherwise healthy people do not need treatment for herpes in terms of their own health.  Outbreaks happen and they run their course.  They are unpleasant, but that’s about the worst of it.  Exceptions to this are pregnant women and people who have compromised immune systems.  These people should consult with a physician regarding appropriate pharmaceutical treatments.  For pretty much everyone else, there are other options.

 

Nutritional Supplementation

It is possible to help control the frequency and severity of herpes outbreaks through modifying nutritional intake – either through food selection and/or taking a supplement.

Yes, it sounds too easy, but it is backed up by actual science.  This article published on the National Institutes of Health library website confirms that taking the supplement L-lysine can help to reduce the number of outbreaks, reduce the symptoms experienced during an outbreak, and speed up the healing time of lesions.

You can learn how lysine helps prevent herpes outbreaks here.

 


Botanical Products

Botanical products have recently been rediscovered as a treatment for herpes outbreaks.  One of the most effective plants is Melissa officinalis, also commonly known as “Lemon Balm” for its lemony scent.  Lemon Balm has been scientifically studied (See article at Nation Institutes of Health here.) and has been shown to act directly on exposed herpes virus and has been suggested as an effective topical treatment.

Likewise, tea tree oil not only has been shown to have anti-viral properties against the herpes virus, but it also has pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory, and healing properties to boot. Peppermint oil has also been shown to be an effective essential oil in the external treatment of herpes lesions (See National Institute of Health article on tea tree and peppermint oils here.)


Understanding Your Options for Herpes Treatment

So, while pharmaceutical products exist to help with herpes, they are not the only source of assistance. For people who do not like to take pharmaceuticals, can’t take pharmaceuticals, or need a break or supplement for pharmaceutical treatments, natural alternatives for herpes such as taking L-lysine and using externally the essential oils of Lemon Balm, Peppermint, and Tea Tree can help significantly.

Calming Your Mind

Most of us don’t realize that we have a lot of stress that this can counteract our other best efforts to control our outbreaks. 

Most of us do not rest well, and we carry around a lot of stress in the forms of negative self-talk and just keeping up with our crazy-busy lives.

My personal journey led me to The Gupta Program.  The Gupta Program helps you calm your mind and body.  It teaches you how to take advantage of the brain’s neuroplasticity, or ability to change. 

Identifying our thought patterns that we have that do not serve us and only add to our existing stress levels – we are able to reprogram our brains through simple exercises.

The Gupta Program helps you identify those patterns.  It also  teaches you how to train your brain to have new, healthy patterns of thought that do not obsess over the condition. 

It seems too simple to be truec, but once you learn these techniques, your stress levels drop, your sleep improves, and your body is less likely to experience outbreaks as often.  

How much Lysine is needed to prevent herpes outbreaks

How Much Lysine to Prevent Herpes Outbreaks?

How Much Lysine
Do I Need to Take
to Prevent Outbreaks?

This is a tough question to answer directly because it depends greatly on each individual’s specific diet.  However, nutrition is key to preventing herpes outbreaks.  Some people naturally consume high levels of lysine (l-lysine) compared to arginine and would need significantly less lysine supplementation to prevent herpes outbreaks.

Other people like vegans or athletes either consume relatively little lysine on their regular diet or utilize it so fast for muscle building and repair that they need to supplement with significantly higher doses.

 


Take a Food Inventory

The best way to approach this question is to make a list of foods that you commonly eat and then make two columns next to this list.  Title one column “lysine” and the other “arginine”.

Next, visit the SuperTracker at choosemyplate.gov and look up each food on the list.  Write down its lysine and arginine values.

SuperTracker can help you plan, analyze, and track your diet and physical activity.

 

Calculate How Much Lysine vs Arginine You Eat

Once you have the values for each of the foods on your list, do a simple tally of each column.  What is the ratio of lysine to arginine?  Is lysine significantly higher, about the same, or significantly lower than arginine?

Of course, this will not tell you your daily ratio of lysine to arginine.  In order to get that, you would have to make a list each day of those foods and tally those amounts.  Most of us will not take the time to do that, so just getting a ballpark idea of our lysine to arginine ratio is a good jumping-off point.

Even if you don’t want to track your meals every day, you might track them for one week to get a typical day-by-day ratio.  If you make your original list of foods you commonly eat in a spreadsheet, then you just need to copy and paste your data to calculate your daily values.


Estimating How Much Lysine to Prevent Herpes Outbreaks

The commonly recommended dosage of lysine to prevent herpes outbreaks is 1,000 mg three times a day.  The idea is to constantly provide your body with a supply of lysine so that you don’t have peaks of high lysine and then nothing until you take it again the next day.

Whether or not this dose will be effective for you is based on what kind of diet you eat and what your body’s need for lysine is.  If you eat meat, dairy and eggs, you probably will need less lysine than a vegan who consumes lots of nuts and seeds.   This is because animal products have a lot of lysine whereas the nuts and seeds eaten by vegans typically have high levels of arginine.  Vegans have a rather difficult time keeping their lysine numbers high, so their doses are likely going to be considerably higher than that of a meat eater.

So, to estimate your dosage of lysine, have a look at the values you calculated and see if your diet is high in lysine, moderate in lysine, or low in lysine compared to arginine.  If you are moderate in lysine, try starting with the 1,000 mg three times per day.  If you are high in lysine, try 1,000 mg twice a day.  If you are low in lysine, try 1,000 mg four times a day.

If you find that you are still experiencing outbreaks, try upping the frequency of your dosage or try a higher dose.

 


Who Should Not Take Lysine?

As always, before taking any supplement, it is wise to consult your physician first.  Some people may have medical conditions that make taking lysine to prevent herpes outbreaks inadvisable or that may indicate smaller amounts of lysine would be more appropriate.  Lysine does more than just help prevent herpes outbreaks, so be sure that you are not at risk for other possible interactions before taking high doses of lysine.

If you have high cholesterol, heart disease, or high triglycerides you may wish to avoid taking lysine or keep a close eye on your cholesterol and triglyceride numbers.  It is important to realize that just because a supplement may help one condition that it also affects other systems in the body and may cause problems for you in other areas.

If you take a calcium supplement, be aware that lysine increases the amount of calcium your body can absorb.  You may also wish to have your calcium levels checked and possibly reduce your dose.