Dr. Catherine Lynch: Basically, the treatment is breakdown to either pills or creams of antiviral agents. The most classically are the Aciklovir, the Zovirax, the Famvir or Famciclovir or the Valacyclovir or Valtrex.
Well there are two different ways that you can take the medications. First, for the primary outbreak or for recurring outbreaks, you would begin the medication and it has been shown to shorten the duration and decrease the severity of the outbreak itself. It's not going to immediately clean it up, but it will kind of lessen the severity. The other approach is to do what is a suppressive therapy, where you actually take the medication on a daily basis to decrease the chance of an outbreak happening.
Dr. Jay Reese: There are studies available that show that the Zovirax, Valtrex, and Famvir do shorten the time during which a virus is being shed in an outbreak, and it cuts down the time for healing completely, and if a person takes the drug on a suppressive basis to suppress outbreaks, they can actually cut down the chances of having a symptomatic viral shedding by as much as 75%.
Dr. Catherine Lynch: A significant percentage of patients actually do improve with the antiviral therapy, especially in terms of the suppressive therapy, which has been shown to decrease the frequency of recurrences, which probably is one of the better ways to use the medications for someone who has more than a couple of outbreaks a year because the medication itself as I mentioned doesn't suddenly shut the outbreak off, it just decreases the duration and shortens the -- shortens the duration and decrease the intensity.
So instead of having a seven-day-outbreak they might have a five-day-outbreak. So the better approach is to suppress the outbreaks totally for someone who has recurring outbreaks. Someone who has a primary infection and never has another outbreak again, then symptomatic therapy is probably a better approach.
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