Well, given that 90% of the world's population has herpes, and given that quite a lot of the world's population lives between the two tropics, I'd say that it probably isn't.

Thanks for the information. Herpes certainly is a horrible disease.

And remember kiddies, herpes is not 100% prevented by the use of condoms. But herpes cannot pass through a condom. Any areas which aren't covered by the condom would still be infectious, the disease is caught by skin to skin contact not bodily fluid.

Herpes seems to be very common here in Zurich where people are often seen with the sores.

Also genital herpes is very widespread (1 on 5 according to statistics ), maybe this has to do with the high concentration of brothels per inhabitant over here ?

genital herpes is vilified everywhere but probably less here though.

I can only say Im sorry you are going trough this and wish you a fast recovery, hope it doesnt go further, im sure it will be fine soon .

I met the guy who invented 'zovirax' once...the reason why I met him was because I had a cold sore and he just *had* to come over and tell me about it!

I remember he was very clear that herpes simplex (the virus that causes cold sores) is usually caught in childhood, and then sits dormant in the nerve endings (which is why outbreaks are so painful!) until it is triggered - usually by sunlight - the first sunburn after the winter months...

I guess it's the same with the eye condition - the virus is there in the nerve endings of the eye - I can imagine it's extremely painful and irritating...

Usually the first incidence (in childhood) is accompanied by a high fever and quite a nasty rash - we had a child around 3 years who caught it last year and she was quite ill for a week.

I guess you are taking anti-viral medication ?

Thanks for sharing. Thats another reason to avoid getting sunburned. Not so easy coming from south east asia.

Silly me. I believed the guy who invented aciclovir / acyclovir, the effective substance in Zovirax, was a gal. She got a Nobel Prize for that, 1988. Zovirax is just one of the products that use aciclovir. It was not invented, but is made and marketed by Sanofi-Aventis. What else did that guy invent?

I heard that he invented the internet. He saw me logging into the English Forum at the airport once and just had to come over and tell me about it...

I didn't walk straight for weeks afterwards...

wow. honestly it is good info because i never even heard about this. i always thought that cold sores and the like just happened to occur for some people who were maybe more sensitive and i was pretty ignorant about how they are transmitted, etc.

anyway i hope you heal up and feel better soon and be sure not to care for any more lesbian children because you don't know what other things you can catch

That's nothing to be embarrassed about: since almost everybody in the world is already infected, and most people are completely unaware of the fact that they are infected, the knowledge isn't really much practical use anyway.

It's just one of those things, like catching the flu off the straps in the bus, or e coli from a door handle at work.

Nasty, but inevitable.

Ooh dear, I guess the more accurate word, then, is 'Formulated' rather than 'Invented'... and it was c. 1995-1996...and yes, I do know that he was in fact responsible for the formulation of this product...

actually, seems pretty impossible that anyone wouldn't have it...

Unless of course, the man I met was this man:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/m...ureates/1988/#

George Hitchings...

But you know that Hitchings died in 1998 at the tender age of 92 years? Ok, he got the Nobel Prize together with Getrude Elion (and Sir James Black). He had contributed a bit to the research that, decades later, eventually led to the development of acyclovir. However, the invention of acyclovir still is mainly attributed to Elion. Hitchings got his Prize for many achievements; acyclovir was not among them. He had just showed some important people the way, including Elion.

Reminds me of a story a friend of mine told me.

She was working in a bar, and one of the regulars came in with an eye infection. She did not ask about it. His friends came in later and were like, “oh my god, did you see his eye?", and she said she had but not commented.

Apparently, he had been in Lambada bar at four in the morning, got hot and heavy with a hooker, fingered her near the dunny, did not wash his hands. touched his eye, and voila, herpes on his eye OF THE SEXUAL KIND.

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I resemble that remark.

He came with a BIG Brown Paper Bag ,I assume

Sorry J-LP, hopefully your eye feels better soon. What an aggrivating thing to have happen, not just the physical things about the disease but also about how it was contracted. I'd be royally pissed!

Have seen that from a patient in one of the opticals where I worked before. Scary stuff, especially since folks CAN be infected (carriers) and never know it.

For myself, I'm not sure how I got to be so lucky, I have siblings that get cold sores but I've never had them. **knock wood** (Or maybe Nature figures she saddled me with enough other crud that she thought she could afford to let me skip this one )

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The Joys of Opticianry

Why?

Most people in the world carry this virus. If people are supposed to disclose that they sometimes get cold sores to each new person they kiss, are they also supposed to also disclose that they use public transport, touch door handles and go to the lavatory?

Shall we fill out a check list of all the nasties we may or not be carrying before having any physical contact with anyone else?

Or shall we just accept that catching the cold sore virus is just one of those things that happens in life, and that trying to pin the blame on one person or one snog is just daft?

Now let's see - someone who has never ever had a herpes issue has a thing with someone who does. During and following the thing, the formerly "un-herpesed" person suddenly has recurring outbreaks. While correlation and causation are a bit controversial as a pair, it does look quite suspicious, no? I'd feel exactly the same way as JLP, having never had a cold sore in my life either. Ah and the farmacist I asked about it yesterday confirms that, yes, you can get it off a person and that eye herpes is pretty dangerous stuff, as in, you can lose the eye.

So hell yeah, I'd be pissed.