Dentist & cold sore

[ohdear91]

I went to see my dentist on Monday. I had quite a lot of work done and my mouth was opened for over 3 hours.

Today I woke up with the worst cold sores that hurt and are itchy on both sides of my lip on the corners.

Aibu to think my visit at the dentist caused it?

I've not had a cold sore since I was 9 so over 20 years 😳

I'm also getting married in 2 months and have a 6 month old baby which I kissed yesterday 😭What if they'll pop out every month now?!

It will be because they caused little splits on your mouth when stretching your lips. The trauma causes cold sores which lie dormant in your body. It happens to me occasionally. I'll not have one for years and then a split on my lip will cause one to come.

Could've been from anywhere not necessarily the dentist. Hope it's short lived.

Yes YABU.
Once you have been infected with the herpes simplex virus you always carry it in your body. It will reactivate at certain times in your life. UV light is one trigger.

Oh that's interesting about stretching the lips. As I was quite uncomfortable for the last 2 hours and had a dried mouth the entire time 🤪

Yes, if you get a little cut or scratch on your lip you can get a cold sore. So the dentist visit most likely caused it in that sense, but not in the sense that the cold sore virus was transmitted to you during the visit. As pp said it lies dormant in your facial nerves your entire life after the initial infection. You cannot be reinfected.

As others have said, if you've had the cold sore virus since you were a child it can surface at any time. I used to get them when I was really little - infant school age - but have only ever had one as an adult and it was after I'd been on a boat trip and out on the deck for several hours in very cold, bright, windy weather. It appeared literally overnight and I think it was just triggered by my lips getting chapped by the wind/sun/sea spray. So I think PPs are absolutely right that it was just because you had dry, stretched lips for ages.

Stress and tiredness can also make them more likely to appear, and if you're getting married in two months and have a six-month-old baby, my guess is that you're probably suffering from both of those things too! So that combined with the dental work was probably a bit of a perfect storm for cold sore conditions.

Take care, look after yourself, get to the pharmacy for some Zovirax and hopefully this will be a one-off!

Start taking lysine daily! I haven't had one since I did. You can buy on Amazon 😊

Hi op. I've had cold sores since I was a child. However, the best treatment is to use nappy rash cream like sudocrem. It stops it in its tracks. Much better than zovirax etc.

No, it is a virus that lives in your cheek, if you had a cold sore ever then you have the virus and it can pop out to visit you any time it likes. So no, you had the virus already and the dentist has not caused it.

Dentist here. What they said. Also sun can trigger a re-emergence. You already have the herpes virus dormant in your body.