Using essential oils for Herpes simplex, Cold Sores

After the onset of my ‘runny nose’ last week I developed cold sores around my nose. What joy!! I immediately reached for my essential oils. I have found that, for me just one or two applications of Manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) essential oil is all I need for the cold sores to be completely on the mend. I know that this works really well for me so I thought that I’d have a look and see if I could find any studies that backed up my personal experience.
I know that a lot of other essential oils work well for cold sores but as Manuka is the one I personally reach for first that’s what I went looking for. Not as many studies available for this oil but here is one that I found:

Virucidal activity of a ?-triketone-rich essential oil of Leptospermum scoparium (Manuka Oil) against HSV-1 and HSV-2 in cell culture
Author(s)
REICHLING Jürgen (1) ; KOCH Christine (1) ; STAHL-BISKUP Elisabeth (2) ; SOJKA Cornelia (2) ; SCHNITZLER Paul (3) ;
Author(s) Affiliation(s)
(1) Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology, Department of Biology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, ALLEMAGNE
(2) Institute of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Biology and Microbiology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, ALLEMAGNE
(3) Hygiene Institute, Department of Virology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, ALLEMAGNE

Abstract
The inhibitory activity of manuka oil against Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) was tested in vitro on RC-37 cells (monkey kidney cells) using a plaque reduction assay. In order to determine the mode of antiviral action of the essential oil, manuka oil was added at different times to the cells or viruses during the infection cycle. Both HSV types were significantly inhibited when the viruses were pretreated with manuka oil 1 h prior to cell infection. At non-cytotoxic concentrations of the essential oil, plaque formation was significantly reduced by 99.5% and 98.9% for HSV-1 and HSV-2, respectively. The 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of manuka oil for virus plaque formation was determined at 0.0001% v/v ( = 0.96 ?g/ mL) and 0.00006% v/v ( = 0.58 ?g/mL) for HSV-1 and HSV-2, respectively. On the other hand, pretreatment of host cells with the essential oil before viral infection did not affect plaque formation. After virus penetration into the host cells only replication of HSV-1 particle was significantly inhibited to about 41% by manuka oil. Flavesone and leptospermone, two characteristic ?-triketones of manuka oil, inhibited the virulence of HSV-1 in the same manner as the essential oil itself. When added at non-cytotoxic concentrations to the virus 1 h prior to cell infection, plaque formation was reduced by 99.1 % and 79.7 % for flavesone and leptospermone, respectively.
Journal Title: Planta medica ISSN 0032-0943 CODEN PLMEAA
Source: 2005, vol. 71, no12, pp. 1123-1127 [5 page(s) (article)] (17 ref.)
Language: English

In the Articles Archives on the website you will find an article on Herpes Simplex and another one on Herpes Simplex Blends.

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