Herpes Treatment

Can herpes be cured or treated?

There is no cure or vaccine for herpes, but there are antiviral drugs that can effectively manage symptoms. While these drugs can't rid the body of the herpes virus, they help people with control the infection, keep outbreaks under control, and can even suppress the virus from reactivating in the genital area.

Tell me about herpes treatments.

Herpes can be treated in a variety of ways. The two main approaches are episodic treatment to help shorten the symptom period and suppressive therapy to help avoid outbreaks altogether and reduce the chance of transmission to sex partners. The three antiviral medications used to treat genital herpes are acyclovir, valacyclovir, and famcyclovir. All three drugs limit the replication (multiplying) and spread of the herpes, but can’t help cells already killed through replication. All three drugs can be used for either episodic or suppressive therapy, depending on the patient's situation.

Do herpes drugs help prevent the virus from spreading?

Yes, but not entirely. If you have genital herpes, but your sexual partner does not, then a daily dose of valacyclovir helps decrease the chances that your partner will develop herpes by 77%. Along with the daily antiviral medication, you should use a latex condom when having sex and avoid sex altogether when you are having an outbreak.

There are FDA-approved drugs (creams and pills) to treat cold sores/fever blisters.

It’s best to treat cold sores as soon as possible. This means if you can recognize prodromal symptoms (signs an outbreak is coming) then you have a better chance of shortening the life of the outbreak, if not preventing them altogether. Some of these include penciclovir 1% cream (applied every two hours for four days), acyclovir 5% cream, famciclovir pills, and valacyclovir pills.