Does a medical mask protect against colds and flu?

Causes

The clinical features of the herpes virus may depend on a number of different factors. These include the type of pathogen, the immune capacity of a particular person, the type of infection, as well as previous infections and diseases.

The cause of herpes is decreased immunity

Herpes can appear on the face for various reasons. But in order to arouse it, a person will need to significantly reduce and worsen the immune system. This is due to the fact that if the virus lives in the human body, it will not manifest itself as long as the immunity is strong. The main causes of herpes on the face and decreased immunity include:

Age, the disease manifests itself more often in children and old people.
Poor nutrition.
Stressful situations, tension.
Hypothermia of the face area.
Close contact with people who have an active herpes virus.
Immune system diseases or blood poisoning.

Here are the main causes of herpes on the face, but you need to know how to treat herpes on the face in the first hours of its manifestation. To do this, you need to familiarize yourself with the symptoms in detail.

Three-layer medical masks

It is this type of mask that is in short supply in most countries of the world. But their effectiveness in terms of protection is low. The distances between the fibers of the mask are relatively large. This means that it is not able to create a barrier for every particle of the virus.

Such masks should be worn by people who are already sick, since the flow of microorganisms when coughing, sneezing or breathing spreads over a much shorter distance.

Symptoms

Often, herpes on the skin of the face appears only in the lip area and this virus belongs to the first type. But the infection can also appear on other parts of the face, for example, on the beard, on the forehead, and there is also herpes on the cheeks. In complex cases of the disease, the virus spreads throughout the entire oral cavity.

What does herpes look like on the face? Clinically, it is a small group of small blisters with fluid in the middle. There is noticeable inflammatory redness around the formations, which resembles a rim. All inflammations of the facial skin are accompanied by itching, burning and possibly even pain.

Manifestation of herpes in the form of blisters

People who have not previously suffered from a similar disease should know the main stages and symptoms of herpes on the face. This will identify the virus and immediately begin treatment of herpes on the face.

Types of colds on the face

Cold pimples look like purulent redness on the skin. At the first stage of their occurrence, redness of the skin appears, and the site of the pimple becomes noticeably thicker in comparison with the surrounding areas. At this moment there is no abscess on the surface and the place looks like inflammation under the skin. After some time, severe pain appears when touched.

Cold pimples can be located in the nose and appear after prolonged exposure to cold, hypothermia and sweating. When you lick your lips in the wind, pimples may appear on your lips. A draft may cause acne in the ears.

The stages of disease development include

A burning sensation and slight tingling of the affected areas of the skin begin to occur; patients experience a loss of strength, malaise, and sometimes an increase in temperature.
Next, swelling begins to appear in those areas of the skin that were previously tingling. After which bubbles with liquid in the middle appear, with a diameter of 2 to 5 mm. The blisters are often very itchy.
The fluid in the ulcers turns to pus.
The swelling goes away a little, but not all of it, after which the ulcers burst and dry out.
Then a skin crust appears in place of the blisters and the wounds heal under it.

Herpes heals and crusts over

It will take about a week to get rid of herpes on the face. It is recommended to begin the fight against the disease in the first hours of symptoms. This will help cure colds before they even appear. Treatment of herpes on the face, at the initial stage, should be carried out using special ointments (Acyclovir or Famciclovir). The ointment is able to quickly penetrate the virus cells and immediately kill them. Otherwise, the patient will have to go through all stages of treatment, and what’s worse, the virus may appear all over the face. As a rule, facial disease always appears in the same place.

For healthy people, the main danger lies in wounds that heal. This is what a healthy person can easily become infected with. Do not scratch wounds that itch, as the infection can easily spread to other areas of the face. Having studied the main symptoms of herpes on the face, you can move on to the question of how to get rid of herpes.

Methods of transmission of the disease

As mentioned earlier, type 1 herpes is more common in people. According to known data, 80–90% of people on Earth are infected with it . In the majority of the population, the virus occurs in a latent form, while in others it is accompanied by the appearance of various ulcers and wounds on the skin. This situation directly depends on the state of the person’s immune system; if herpes appears repeatedly during the year, then it is worth thinking about increasing immunity. Patients suffering from cancer, low immunity, or other serious illnesses can become infected with the most complex forms of herpes. Such a virus can infect the brain, esophagus and lead to other serious destruction in the body.

Treatment with pharmaceutical drugs

It is impossible to completely cure a cold on the face in the form of herpes. This is due to the fact that there are no drugs that can cure herpes forever. Any treatment method can only provide a temporary result, and also allows you to remove active manifestations of the virus. But the virus remains in the body until the end of a person’s life, albeit in a passive mode. In this state, it is not dangerous and does not reproduce.

Zovirax for the treatment of herpes

So how to treat a cold on your face? To achieve this, the following therapy and prevention should be used:

Lead a healthy lifestyle (eat normally, sleep, exercise);
It is forbidden to treat a cold and squeeze out tumors on the face at this time. They contain a very large amount of virus, which can be easily transferred to another part of the body;
At home, iodine, brilliant green or alcohol will help quickly dry out the rash. They should be applied to the cold until a crust appears.
Vaseline and baby creams can be used to moisturize a crusted or dry area of skin;
As pharmaceutical drugs, it is necessary to treat herpes on the cheek and other areas of the face using cold ointments: Gepevir, Acyclovir, Zovirax;
If the form of the cold is more advanced, then tablets can be used: Acyclovir, Zovirax and Gerpevir.
Any type of herpes must be additionally treated by boosting the immune system. To do this, you can take vitamin C, Imunofan, as well as echinacea-based products;
The course of treatment also includes other drugs, which may be prescribed by the doctor.

Prevention

Solving this problem takes time, how much depends on the immune system and the duration of the disorder. The problem is that very often acne is a manifestation of internal, more serious diseases. It is important to identify and eliminate the cause of the violation. But only the full complex, that is, both external and internal use, can lead to restoration of the body.

Strengthen your immunity. Do exercises, hardening, proper nutrition and give up bad habits. Take vitamins or choose a vitamin complex. Eat more vegetables and fruits.
Avoid hypothermia.
You can't squeeze pimples. This can leave you with scars or pits and may increase the number of breakouts. The worst thing is that you can additionally introduce some kind of infection. Besides, this place hurts.
Wash your face every morning with warm water, and then use special cosmetics. They must contain either triclosan or salicylic acid.
Take a bath with sea salt, herbs or algae extracts.
Eat right. Eat less fried, smoked and sweet foods. Also limit your intake of seasonings and salt.

Treatment with folk remedies

Treatment of herpes on the face at home should only take place after the consent of the doctor, and also as an addition to traditional methods of treatment. Folk remedies for herpes cannot have as strong an effect on the infection as pharmaceutical drugs, so they are used to speed up recovery and relieve symptoms. How to quickly get rid of herpes:

It is recommended to use propolis tincture. To do this you need to mix 20 grams. propolis and 50 ml of alcohol and leave for a week in the refrigerator. During this period, you will need to shake the container every day. The finished product should be applied to inflamed areas. In addition, using the tincture internally will help quickly cure herpes on the face and other parts of the body. It is diluted in water in a dosage of 20 drops. The product is used once daily;

Propolis tincture works great against the herpes virus.

Ginger juice has proven itself to be excellent. Soak a cotton swab in fresh juice and apply to the inflamed area of skin. This compress should be kept for 15 minutes. The procedure should be repeated 3 times a day. Possible burning of the affected skin;
You can prepare a homemade ointment that will quickly cure herpes on the cheek or mouth. You need to combine 2 cloves of chopped garlic, 1 tsp each. flour, honey and instant coffee and add 2 tbsp. natural yogurt. Having combined the components, the ointment is applied 3-4 times a day to all affected parts.

Such recipes are very helpful in coping with the disease. Other products have also proven themselves to be quite good: essential oil of fir, cedars, eucalyptus and various species of conifers. Oils can be applied to inflamed skin, but they should be combined with vegetable oil in a 1:2 ratio. If the skin is oily, then the oil can not be diluted, but apply esters only to the affected skin.

The herpes virus on the forehead and other areas may occur in the form of a relapse, in which case the symptoms will not be so obvious and will not last so long. Sometimes the disease becomes chronic. Therefore, additional rashes may form on the face while the old rash has not gone away. But using the information from this material, you can quickly cope with the infection by learning how to treat herpes on the face.

Here are presented all the possible methods of how to quickly cure a cold, but in order to prevent relapses and to prevent complications, you should maintain hygiene, lead a correct and healthy lifestyle, and also take various drugs and traditional medicine products that can strengthen the immune system. When the first signs of infection appear, treatment should begin and not wait until inflammation and rashes begin to appear.

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...But sometimes it protects from it

Further, the same review from 2020 touches on the usefulness of wearing masks by the population for the purpose of not infecting others with the wearer. Here it draws on an experiment in Hong Kong during the flu epidemic, with a sample of 407 people. They all received a confirmed diagnosis, and then researchers tried to stop them from infecting their family members. Some of them were forced to wear masks, others were forced to wear masks and wash their hands frequently and thoroughly, and the third were not forced to do anything (control group).

A man is in the middle of a sneeze cycle. It is clearly visible that many of the droplets from his respiratory tract fly out very large. These can be dangerous only at an extremely short distance, and it is precisely from their spread that medical masks help patients. Alas, they do not prevent their carrier from becoming infected from small droplets that more easily penetrate masks and respirators / ©Wikimedia Commons

It turned out that masks by themselves do not reduce the risk of infection of a sick person at home. Even in combination with handwashing, they only did this when masks and handwashing were prescribed to sick people in the first 36 hours after they developed symptoms.

And here the conclusion is simple: if you just got sick, you should wear a mask and wash your hands thoroughly - this way you are less likely to infect others. However, you can’t help yourself anymore.