091: Arginine and Lysine What It Has To Do With Your Herpes with Alexandra Harbushka

Life With Herpes What you need to know to prevent herpes outbreaks.   https://youtu.be/y2OZcjoLon0 Prior to being diagnosed with herpes you probably never heard of arginine and lysine. At least I never did. I am pretty sure it was covered in biology class at some point in high school but not being the science geek that stuff went right out of my memory bank. So what is all this fuss over arginine and lysine and how does it affect people living with herpes?  Here are the deets. Let’s go back to science class. Remember what amino acids or essential proteins do? I had to pull this way out of my memory file.   Amino acids are the building blocks of our muscles and really each muscle is what shapes our body so they are pretty important. Perhaps when you were in biology your teacher used the visual example of legos. Remember when you completed your lego house and it was all put together well imagine that each leggo is an amino acid. Each leggo fits and builds on top of the other one to make the big lego house. It’s the same with amino acids they all go together and to build your muscles. Amino acids do other cool stuff that is essential for the synthesis of proteins, enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, metabolic pathways, mental stabilization, and just about every function that takes place within the human body. So they are pretty important. Essential amino acids are...wait for it…essential. They are essential because our bodies can not make them on our own so in order to function properly, we have to consume them in our diet. There’s a whole long list of the essential amino acids but for our purpose, we are interested in Arginine and Lysine. We need both of them in our diets in order to live a healthy life and have our bodies function properly. If your going….what’s this got to do with herpes just hang in there a bit longer :-) So what do these two do in the body? Well, arginine improves cardiovascular health, increases blood flow and helps with athletic ability. You will find that there’s a lot of arginine in athletic performance drinks and supplements. Lysine is helpful with growth hormones as well as for athletes and people who are active because it helps the muscles repair and recover. It’s also used for fat digestion, lowering cholesterol, forming collagen and absorbing calcium. Both arginine and lysine are important and we need them in our system. Here’s where lysine and arginine come into play with herpes. The herpes virus needs arginine to breed. Without arginine, it can’t multiply. It’s basically fuel to the fire and it feeds the virus which makes it multiple and thus you get an outbreak. If you have an outbreak and continue to feed it with herpes lighter fluid then guess what happens. You guessed it, it keeps the outbreak active longer and can even cause more lesions. So not a good combo. On the contrary, lysine suffocates the herpes virus. The virus cannot replicate when lysine is present. So when using the lighter fluid analogy it's like a fire extinguisher to the virus.  Lysine and Arginine play a pretty big role in preventing your herpes outbreaks. Now if your thinking, “great I will just eliminate all arginine from my diet and only eat lysine so I never get another outbreak” that's what I thought too. However, this won't work and as I explained earlier, both are essential and we need both arginine and lysine in our diets to live life. But here is what you can do to help fight the herpes fire. You can cut back on the high arginine foods, increase the lysine foods and the pro tip is take daily lysine supplements. By adding a little bit extra lysine to your diet it can help keep the herpes virus dormant or if you get an outbreak lysine will help speed up the healing process and keep it at bay. I use the Pure Encapsulations of I-Lysine, click here to buy. I take 1000mg daily and 3000mg if I have an outbreak. Sometimes when I feel my immune system is low or if I have overindulged in high arginine foods then I will up my does for the day. Give them a try. Also, please remember if you have any questions to consult with your doctor before taking supplements. Make sure your body can handle them and you don't have any cross-reactions. Ok?   Here’s How I Can Help Join our monthly live Herpes Support Group - www.lifewithherpes.com/supportgroup Herpes Outbreak Toolkit - https://lifewithherpes.com/herpes-outbreak-toolkit Emergency Call - https://lifewithherpes.com/emergencycall/ Keep in touch with Alexandra Harbushka www.lifewithherpes.com www.instagram.com/alexandraharbushka www.facebook.com/lifewithherpespodcast   www.pinterest.com/lifewithherpes Join The Live With Herpes Community If you are ready to join a community of people who are living with herpes also then you will want to join our slack group. It is FREE and it is a great way to find the support and comfort that you are looking for. Head on over to www.lifewithherpes.com and join our community. You will receive a slack invitation as soon as you sign up. See you in there. Ways You Can Support The Life With Herpes Show If you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it for you than  a subscribe would be a great idea. Are you a YouTuber? Go ahead and subscribe to the show. It is a way to pay it forward to fellow friends who are living with herpes. When you subscribe it helps the algorithm in YouTube and it helps promote the show. If you are worried about your identity and your friends finding out you subscribed to a herpes channel then change your settings to private. And trust me I totally get it and would want to keep it a secret. Also, when you subscribe you will be notified in your inbox when a new episode is out or when Alexandra is live on Youtube Live. Subscribe Here Are you a podcast listener? Please give the Life With Herpes show a review. It is a way to pay it forward to fellow friends who are living with herpes. You can Subscribe, Rate and Review the show through your iTunes app or on the desktop. Seriously, it helps out a lot more than it is a hassle for you. You see, iTunes has an algorithm that organically promotes the show, so the more ratings and reviews the Life With Herpes Show receives then the higher it gets ranked. This is your way of paying it forward and helping someone find the show who really needs it. Oh, and you can totally use a fake name, so don’t worry about a friend finding you in the iTunes review. Talking about herpes needs to be spread as far and wide as possible. You are totally a part of this movement so THANK YOU!   Subscribe, Rate and Review