The sad fact is that there's still a pervasive wall of shame and silence over this disease. People are much more likely to publicly declare their HIV positive status than admit to having Herpes. There are numerous charities and foundations with their high-profile celebrity spokespersons leading very public campaign of AIDS awareness and research. There's an ever increasing amount of sympathy and support for AIDS victims from general public. But I challenge you to name a public spokesperson for Herpes? Better yet, can anyone even name one single Herpes charity? I'm sure they exist, but their public profiles are next to nonexistent. Have you ever seen a telethon to raise money for Herpes research? It's inconceivable to me why Herpes is treated as such a "dirty" disease. Is it modern leprosy? I have worked with many Herpes sufferers who do not tell their lovers of their status for fear of being rejected. I'm not sure what answer would be to gaining more support and sympathy for sufferers of Herpes, but it's something we could all work on.

The Acyclovir family of drugs-including Valtrex and Famvir, has been long standing therapy prescribed by doctors for treatment of Herpes 1 and 2. Although drug has proven itself to be somewhat effective in reduction of duration and severity of outbreaks when used topically and in suppression of some outbreaks when taken orally, this effectiveness can come with a steep price.

Acyclovir does not cure Herpes, and must be taken indefinitely. Like many other drugs there are serious possible side-effects, including kidney dysfunction, toxicity in nervous system, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea seizures, confusion and tremors, severe headaches. Beyond these perhaps biggest problem with taking these drugs for Herpes is creation of drug-resistant strains of virus that will make treating people in future much more difficult.

I have been using natural remedies to help people suffering with Herpes for fourteen years now. One of principle natural tools used in controlling Herpes has been L-lysine-an amino acid that has been proven to reduce frequency of outbreak in some people. Unfortunately L-lysine has now been shown to have it's own serious side-effect. Since it's main action is to inhibit arginine in cellular environment, long term effect of taking L-lysine is lowering of body's immune function. Which is a less than a desirable outcome.

Part Two:

A Comprehensive Programme for Managing Herpes Safely and Effectively

Fifteen years ago I contracted Herpes myself in context of a monogamous relationship. Being open-minded and desperate I tried drug therapy and immediately got migraine headaches for first time in my life. It was clear that I had to find a natural way of managing disease for myself since I was going to have it for rest of my life and I needed a way of being able to resume my sex life without dread of likelihood of passing it on to others. In next two years I tried every natural therapy available at time. Frustrated from lack of consistent and lasting results from most of touted natural remedies for Herpes I started developing my own treatment programme based on my families multi-generational background as herbalists.

What I found through my experience is that Herpes needs to be addressed on many levels- obviously nutrition and lifestyle changes/adjustments but that also deep shame and many psychological effects of disease are equally if not more important to treat than outbreaks. Herpes also can change quite significantly during course of someone's history with disease so any protocol would have to be flexible enough to deal with evolutionary nature of presenting symptoms.