128: 4 Holistic Ways To Treat Your Herpes Outbreak With Alexandra Harbushka

Life With Herpes

As we all know there’s a couple of ways to treat ailments or sickness when it happens. We can go to the doctor and get antibiotics or some type of prescription, we can go the holistic way or we can do nothing. In the past decades we got away from the holistic way and anytime we had a sniffle or our finger hurt we to the doctor to get an antibiotic. Now more and more people are turning towards holistic ways to treat a sickness or in our case a herpes outbreak.

 

Personally, I do both the medical western methods and the holistic eastern methods. We’re lucky that with modern technology and advancements we can cure and treat so many illnesses. However, I’m a huge fan of pulling something out of my cupboard and using it to aid in healing or even doing the job. I mean, it’s pretty cool to think that things you keep in your cupboard can help a herpes outbreak heal.

 

Here are some of my favorite holistic ways to clear up and treat an outbreak.

 

Essential Oils

If you’ve been binge-watching or listening to Life With Herpes for a while you know how much I love essential oils. They are compounds extracted from plants. There’s hundreds of them and they all do something a little different. If you want to know more then you can do your own research on them. But the bottom line is they can have some major impacts on your mood and even your health. The essential oils I use and recommend for herpes outbreaks; melaleuca or commonly known as tea tree oil, lavender oil, peppermint oil, and oregano oil. You can refer to x episode to learn more about how I use them and why I love them.

Vanilla Extract

Ok so vanilla extract is what you use when you make chocolate chip cookies or for your other baking needs. Personally I think vanilla makes everything taste better!  Did you know vanilla also contains alcohol? So with that being said you can use vanilla extract instead of rubbing alcohol to sanitize. This would be ideal if you have an oral outbreak and let’s be honest, vanilla tastes way way way better than rubbing alcohol...yuck! The vanilla extract will help clean and dry out the herpes sore so it will heal faster. Just use a q-tip and dab the sore with vanilla.

Epsom Salt Baths

Epsom Salt Baths are some of my favorite baths!!! I was introduced to them a while back by a physical therapist who recommended that all athletes or people who exercise regularly should be taking epsom salt baths a couple of times a week. I’ll be honest, I don’t make the time to do them weekly but if or when I have an outbreak I’ll hop in the tub and soak. The epsom salts really really do help sooth the pain, help with itching,  dry out the sore and a bonus is the epsom salts also calm your nervous system. And if you have an outbreak then chances are your nervous system is on over drive and needs you to take an Epsom salt bath. My favorite thing to do is add some lavender essential oil to the bath, it's all sorts of goodness.

Coconut Oil

I feel like a while back coconut was the miracle drug or all the answers to your medical needs. Suddenly everything was coconut oil. Well, I’m a huge fan of coconut oil for all sorts of things like cooking over 400 degrees or using it as a natural lotion, my husband and I even use it for lube! But for herpes applying coconut oil to your genitals will really help alleviate pain. One of the symptoms is itching or a burning like irritation adding coconut oil to the sore or the itchy area can help sooth the pain. Getting back to the miracles of coconut oil but in all seriousness coconut oil is pretty amazing, it’s antiviral, anti bacterial, antifungal and it has other great health benefits if your consuming it. But to stay on topic with herpes we’ll just talk about using it topically.

Something that you can use to kill a couple of birds with one stone is Woo More Play lube. Yes, I’m talking about lube and herpes. I know that if you have an outbreak right now lube or sex is the last thing you want to do. But you can use Woo More Play to help with your outbreak. The ingredients are all organic which include coconut oil (yay), vanilla extract (double yay) and two other ingredients like bees wax which helps with swelling and stevia which helps remove any bacteria. So it’s a win win. You can use your lube to help with your outbreak! Click Here To Buy Woo More Play.

If you’re missing any of these herpes outbreak essentials you can purchase them on Amazon, go here to visit the Life With Herpes Amazon store.

 

Details:

Join the Secret Society HerpAlert (use promo code: lifewithherpes and get 10% off)

Oh yea, remember to subscribe to the Life With Herpes newsletter and get The 5 things  I wished she knew before I was diagnosed with herpes sent directly to your inbox + weekly updates.

 

Xoxo,

Alexandra

Just in case…

Learn about the Herpes Outbreak Toolkit:

Need to talk confidentially about herpes?

Oh Yea and in case you need Herpes Outbreak Essentials

 

Are you social?

Instagram

Facebook