Cold sore medicine

Cold sore medicines come in cream, liquid and tablet form. In general, cold sore creams should do the job, as long as you apply it to the cold sore as soon as initial symptoms appear, e.g tingling and reddening of the skin.

Brands such as Abreva sell over the counter, non-prescription medicines in the form of a cream, which should be applied directly to the cold sore as soon as initial symptoms appear. Abreva cold sore cream is the only non-prescription, anti-viral cold sore medicine to be approved by the FDA, as clinically proven to reduce the length of your outbreak.

If your cold sore outbreaks are more persistent and regular, you should see your doctor and get him/her to prescribe you with something stronger.

Zovirax, Valtrex, and Famvir sell prescribed cold sore medicines in the form of topical creams, i.e by applying directly onto the cold sore, and in tablet form taken orally.
These medicines should be applied as soon as initial symptoms become apparant.
This is because the medicines work by stopping the virus from replicating itself in other cells, and stopping it before it can become a fully blown cold sore.

If taken too late it will probably have little effect in stopping the cold sore. If this is the case then you can either let it play out its life naturally, or you could look to home based, and alternative cold sore remedies.

I will go into this more in my post labelled 'Cold sore remedies'.

Abreva

Abreva is an antiviral, over the counter cold sore drug. Marketed as Erazaban in Europe, it was the first antiviral drug that was approved for sale in the USA and Canada over the counter. The key ingredient is behenyl alcohol; a fatty alcohol used as an antiviral agent, for the treatment of cold sores caused by the herpes simplex virus. Clinical trials by the FDA, have shown behenyl alcohol to shorten the healing time of a cold sore by 17.5 hours. While 10% of Abreva is made up of behenyl alcohol, the remaining 90% is a base mix.