are vegans at higher risk for herpes outbreaks

Being a vegan with herpes isn't easy

Being a Vegan with Herpes

Being a Vegan with Herpes

For some time now I’ve lived with herpes that I got from a partner who blatantly lied to me about having it. If you are reading this article, then there’s a good chance that you also have become a member of “The Club” due to someone’s dishonesty. Well, you’re in good company.

What made my particular situation worse than most people is that I happen to be a vegan. What I didn’t know for years was that my very healthy diet was causing me to have constant outbreaks. I mean like one after another. One outbreak would clear up and then the next one would start a day or two later. I didn’t think that it would ever end.  For most folks, they happen, clear up, and then you get a break, just like the books tell you.  I was not having the typical herpes experience, so learning to make peace with herpes and adjust like most people do wasn’t happening for me.


The Medicines I Tried for Herpes

I tried every medication available – acyclovir, famcyclovir, valacyclovir, tablets and ointments. They didn’t help. I was taking 1 gram of valacyclovir a day as a preventative measure and my outbreaks continued.

When I asked my doctor what was wrong and why the medications were not helping, he had nothing of value to offer me. He said that usually it’s bad when you first get it and it improves over time with outbreaks becoming less frequent.

Well, in my case, the outbreaks were constant. The first one was the worst, by far, but it’s not like any of them were “good.” They were always painful and I was in constant agony.


The Natural Treatments I Tried for Herpes

I even tried using essential oils to treat the lesions, which helped a bit, but it did not prevent the outbreaks. For those of you who are interested in using essential oils, I used oregano essential oil as an antiviral (it stings like hell) and clove essential oil to numb the area, which definitely helped with the constant pain.

Of course, it wears off and you have to reapply it, but the combination of oregano and clove oil worked better than any ointment I got by prescription. After tinkering around a bit, I learned to numb first with clove oil, wait about 5 minutes, and then apply the oregano oil – diluted in coconut oil makes it hurt less. You can mix it with the solid or liquid kind.

How I Figured Out My Diet was Making My Herpes Worse

Anyway, so after battling herpes for a couple of years, I kinda got out of working out due to some personal problems that had me kinda depressed. While I still had outbreaks, they tended to be less severe and less frequent.

I also happened to be single during this time and I thought maybe that the lack of sex may have something to do with the less frequent outbreaks. My doctor had advised me that sex is one of the outbreak triggers.

Since getting herpes I really didn’t feel much up to dating or having to disclose that information to someone and then get rejected. So, I just went without for a long time. In fact, I’m still single. I haven’t gotten to where I can handle trying to tell someone about it, but it’s getting better.

While there are some good resources for how to adjust to having herpes and how to tell a potential partner that you have herpes,  there is a special place in Hell for my ex.

Back to my story.

So while I wasn’t working out, the outbreaks were less. But, then, after having gained a lot of weight from sitting on my ass and eating crappy junk food all of the time, I decided it was time to get my crap together and lose some weight.

I began eating a healthier diet which included plenty of nuts, seeds, and so forth for protein. I also started working out again, and since I planned to gain some muscle, I started drinking my favorite vegan protein shake.

I was starting to feel good about finally having gotten myself motivated enough to start working out and eating better, when a couple of days later – yeah, it was really that quick – I got another outbreak. *sigh*

I figured that it was no big deal and kept on with my workouts, good vegan food, and protein shakes. When that outbreak cleared up, another one started…and then I got another one, and another one.


Figuring It Out

Nothing had really changed except my diet and my workouts, so I started doing some research and found out that vegan diets are the worst diet that exists for herpes. That is not because they are unhealthy, but because of the low ratio of the amino acid lysine to the amino acid arginine. If you aren’t suffering from a chronic virus like herpes, this is really neither here nor there. If you have herpes, however, it is a HUGE deal.

You see, vegans get much of their protein from seeds and nuts which are very low in lysine and very high in arginine. If you are a vegan who works out and drinks vegan protein shakes it’s like putting your herpes on steroids. It super-fuels them to build more of themselves.

Lysine is rather hard to come by in the vegan diet. You can get it, just not in really high amounts like you can arginine. And, again, if you don’t have herpes, it’s not a big deal (presuming that you are getting enough lysine for standard protein synthesis, which usually isn’t a problem).  Being a vegan with herpes just has a few extra challenges.  But the good news is – they’re pretty easy to fix.

What I Did to Help My Outbreaks

So, what did I do? Well, I adjusted my diet as best as I could.  I’m vegan for ethical reasons, so eating meat and dairy were simply not an option.  I was stuck being a vegan with herpes.

I can’t exactly stop eating things with arginine because they are where I get my protein, but I did cut back. I had blood tests run to make sure I was getting enough protein and they came back fine.

I decided that the best thing to do was to take lysine supplements. I experimented a bit to find the right dosage for me, which I think is quite diet dependent. I tried 1,000 mg, then 2,000 mg, and finally 4,000 mg/day. I found that taking two doses of 2,000 mg of lysine – one in the morning and one at night right before I went to sleep was the ideal amount for me.

I still have outbreaks, but they are less frequent and less severe. I really wish my doctor would have told me this. It would have saved me a lot of painful days.  Being a vegan with herpes isn’t easy, but with careful diet monitoring and lysine supplements, you can make it much easier to deal with.

Rest and Relaxation Are Also Key

It took a long time for me to get around to it, as I thought that I had addressed everything I needed to, but eventually I realized that I had a lot of stress that was working against all my other best efforts to control my outbreaks.  I was not resting well, and I was carrying around a lot of stress in the forms of negative self-talk and just keeping up with my hectic life.

I eventually landed on a website that referred me to something called The Gupta Program.  The Gupta Program teaches you how to take advantage of the brain’s neuroplasticity, or ability to change.  When we identify our thought patterns that we have – such as “no one will ever love me because I have herpes,” or “I’m just broken and worthless.  Who could possibly want me?” (both of which are not true) – we are able to reprogram our brains.

The Program walks you through identifying those patterns, and then it teaches you how to train your brain to have new, healthy patterns of thought that do not obsess over the condition.  Once you learn this, your stress levels drop, sleep improves, and your body is less likely to experience outbreaks as often.  


how to prevent herpes outbreak

How Lysine Helps Prevent Herpes Outbreaks

How Lysine Helps
Prevent Herpes Outbreaks

Before we can understand why lysine can help with herpes, we first need to examine what lysine is.  Lysine, also known as l-lysine, is an amino acid.  Ok, but what does that mean?

Why Our Bodies Need Lysine

Our bodies build proteins by stringing together amino acids in a chain.  In order to build proteins, it is necessary to have all of the necessary amino acids present.  Our bodies produce some of these proteins, but there are some we are unable to synthesize.  These are known as “essential amino acids” because they are essential for us to get in order to survive.  If you are missing just one amino acid, proteins cannot be synthesized.  When we cannot synthesize proteins, we cannot grow or repair our bodies.

Think of it like building a house.  If you have lumber, shingles, and concrete for the foundation you are pretty well on your way to having a nice home.  Without nails, though, you won’t get very far.  Essential amino acids are like the nails.

Lysine is more than just a building block of protein.  It also helps to convert fatty acids into energy and lower cholesterol.  Lysine helps with the absorption of calcium from the diet and is an important component of collagen which is a connective tissue that holds our bodies together.

 


Lysine Deficiency – Herpes Diet

Failure to get enough lysine can lead to reproductive disorders, slow growth, agitation, loss of appetite, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, anemia, and blood shot eyes.  People who may not get enough lysine are burn patients (because their bodies are reconstructing collagen at a rapid rate), athletes (because their bodies are in a constant state of growing and repairing muscle), and vegans who do not eat enough legumes (lentils, beans, and peas).

Although a vegan diet can be much healthier than a diet containing animal products, lysine is one thing that is not very prevalent in vegan foods.  If you are a vegan who does not watch his or her nutritional intake closely (and who really does that?), then you might just opt to take a lysine supplement.  The other nutrient vegans may wish to supplement is B12.  Like lysine, it is scarce in the vegan diet, but both can be obtained in vegan form for supplementation.

As you will see, making sure that you have enough lysine is critical to avoiding herpes outbreaks.  Call it the “Herpes Diet.”

 


What Does Lysine Have to do with Herpes?

One other function of lysine – well, not so much a function as an effect – is that it competes with another amino acid known as arginine for space in our cells.  Each of our cells has little tiny “doors” on them through which certain substances may pass.

Think of those little “doors” as the holes in the child’s toy where the objective is to put the round object through the round hole and the square object through the square hole.  The round object will not go through the square hole and vice versa.

Lysine and arginine are like two different colored square blocks.  They are both competing to get through the “square doors” on the cell walls.  Only one can pass at a time, so if there are tons of lysine blocks and only a few arginine blocks duking it out at the cell door trying to be the one that gets through, by simple probability there will be more lysine blocks that will make it in than arginine before there is no more room.

A Word on Herpes

Ok, finally we have enough information to talk about herpes.

Herpes hangs out in our Central Nervous System and waits until we are stressed – emotionally, hormonally, or physically – and then it mounts a campaign and “breaks out” of the nervous system.  The viruses that have been produced then rush to the site at which we were originally infected – usually genitals or lips – and cause sores to erupt.  This is its survival strategy to move from one person to another.


Why Is the Amount of Lysine vs. Arginine Important?

The ratio of lysine to arginine is important in preventing herpes outbreaks because the herpes virus requires lots of arginine in order to replicate, or make more of, itself.  By having high levels of lysine, we can deprive the herpes virus from a critical component of replication simply because there is no more room in our cells for arginine to fit because lysine beat it to the punch.

Without sufficient building materials to create more herpes viruses, outbreaks become far less frequent  or far less severe.  Additionally, treating herpes naturally by supplementing over the counter l-lysine as a herpes treatment can reduce the length and severity of the outbreak.  How much lysine you need to prevent herpes outbreaks can vary.

Lysine (l-lysine) is known to help both cold sores (oral herpes) and genital herpes.


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.