LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Cold Sores: Blisters
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Cold sores are considered to be most contagious when the blisters have burst open and have begun to weep fluid. This is because the liquid held in these blisters contains literally millions of herpes simplex virus particles.
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It is usually easy to recognise cold sores once the first recurrence has occurred. The first sign of an attack is often a tingly or burning feeling in the skin, at the point where the cold sore is likely to appear. It's ... common to be quite itchy around this area as well. This itchy, tingling feeling tends to last for about 6-8 hours. There may be nothing visible at this stage except the start of a slight redness. Then the skin over the cold sore area starts to become a little puffy, as a blister forms.
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Cold sores are painful, clear blisters that can appear singly or in clusters of 10 or 20. Before you get a cold sore, your body often gives you a warning signal: the affected area will itch, tingle, or burn before the sore forms.
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By and large the diagnosis of herpes (cold sores) is a clinical diagnosis, meaning that laboratory tests are often neither necessary nor useful. Swabbing the blister in an attempt to culture the virus in the lab is only productive in the first couple of days before the blister has a crusted over. By the time the culture has grown the virus, generally 3 to 5 days, the condition has usually healed.
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Your dentist or physician usually can diagnose cold sores and fever blisters by asking you about your medical history and simply examining the affected area of skin. More sophisticated methods of diagnosis include viral cultures, immunofluorescence (IF) or immunoperoxidase (IP) studies to detect HSV-1 in cells scraped from the infected area. The sophisticated tests are not always necessary in otherwise healthy patients.
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Before the appearance of cold sores, there is often what’s called a prodromal stage, where there is pain or tingling in a localized area. Cold sores are painful, red, fluid-filled blisters that typically occur on the lips, although they may ... occur on the nostrils, chin, gums, or hard palate. You may also have soreness in the mouth, fever, and swollen lymph nodes.
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Blisters