You might panic when dealing with a herpes outbreak, but you will anyhow have to try different ways of treating it. And one of them is altering your diet so that your condition heals faster. To combat the herpes virus, you need effective remedies and foods to eat that can process the recovery. Follow these tips.

Include foods with high in lysine

Look into adding lysine to your diet. Lysine is an amino acid which can be had as a supplement or from foods naturally. This acid is used for preventing and treating cold sores by blocking the action of arginine (which increases the multiplication of the herpes virus). Lysine may be taken whenever you have a herpes outbreak or before the onset of symptoms.

If you have kidney disease or if you are pregnant or nursing it is important to consult your doctor before you have Lysine supplement. You can also include these foods containing high amounts of Lysine like most vegetables and fruits particularly beets, avocados, mangoes, tomatoes, apples, apricots, pears, figs, and papaya. Also, include dairy products such as milk, yogurt, and cheese. Eggs, brewer’s yeast, fish (mainly sardines and cod), chicken, beef, and lamb also have a high content of lysine. Vegetarians can opt for sprouts as well.

Eat for healthy skin

Make sure that you are getting plenty of zinc, vitamin C, and bioflavonoids in your diet to help protect, nourish and strengthen your skin. This will strengthen your immune system to prevent outbreaks in the first place and also help your skin to heal more quickly during breakouts.

Avoid foods with excessive arginine

This amino acid might slightly stimulate replication of the herpes virus. So, you should avoid food items like foods with wheat (which is most refined carbohydrates), chocolate, nuts, including peanut butternuts, nut-based butter, protein shakes and drinks that contain arginine, oats (including porridge), and muscle-building formulas and multivitamins that contain arginine.

Say no to unhealthy foods

Avoid sugary bottled drinks, packaged snacks, and flavored products like yogurt, cereal, granola bars and refined grains.

By paying attention to what we eat we can help to minimize the chance of a herpes recurrence.