Home remedies · Skin, wounds & stings
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
At the first tingling and tightness, cool it, keep the spot dry, do not touch it, use your own towel.
The tingling precedes the blister by hours — in that window the outbreak can best be damped. Cold also eases the burning.
It does not reliably prevent the outbreak; the virus stays and returns with stress, sun and infections.
No contact with infants, people with eczema or weakened immunity — the course can be severe there. With blisters near the eye see an eye doctor at once.
See a doctor: wounds that gape, bleed heavily or are deep, bite wounds, burns larger than your own palm or with blisters on the face and joints. Likewise redness spreading quickly, especially with fever. And any mole that changes.