Daryl,
Let me expand on your tips on Fever Blisters and Shaving.
Fever Blisters
1) Stress and Burdens: Turn the problems over to Christ. Without the worry and stress.. I don't get them nearly as often. My personal understanding of Grace has done more than medicine. I personally love stress and can work well with it... but my body rebells, shuts down, starts making mistakes etc. So I had to learn a balance.
2) Lotion & Moisturizers: The virus lives in your spine nerve endings and travels up under your neck and onto your facial lip area during times of stress of sickness. As you have learned.. keep lotion and ( Aquaphor by Eucerin is one of the best ) applied to your facial areas and even neck as these are some of the areas it is "reading" from your spinal neck nerves.
I have even during the onset of one.. used on Aquaphor on it (it's ugly and shiney.. but only lasts about a day before turning to heal. It also speeds the healing as scabs take longer for it to shrink) So Aquaphor and Eucerin lotions are amazing.
3) Alcohol Application: Yes what you said on Alcohol application works.. ( I call it burning it out - apply to it stings and burns that spot for as long as you can hold it - insert hours here) but from my experience.. not with ALL of the out breaks. I'm beginning to believe that some are different that others and you have to adjust the treatment to match that specific outbreak as crazy as that sounds.
4) Ice or Cold Pack Application: Fever blisters have that name because of the irritating heat they appear to produce with the swollen throbbing etc. So I have experimented with direct ice application as well as cold pack application and have had extraordinary results on some. Amazingly.. I have completely stopped the onset of a few blisters by catching some early enough with direct ice early in the a.m. It literally stopped it from developing. If not complete removal.. it will reduce the outbreak area. The only negative is that you must apply the ice or ice pack (as cold as you can get - directly on the raw area - insert hours here)
5) Expensive Medicine - Valtrex: You can get a prescription for this specialized antibiotic from your doctor $$. If taken early it will reduce the outbreak time - but it increases my already groggy state when I develop a blister.
6) Over the Counter - Abrevia: Sadly it doesn't work on me at all and I think I've had a worse reaction using it than not at all.
7) Avoid Nut Based Foods: The fever blister is a virus and loves specific foods such as anything NUT based. It loves the oil that comes from this and related products it is added into. Be aware of this type of intake.
Shaving:
Everything you said is great. When you shave as you have noticed.. take special care around your mouth and chin, cheek areas close to your mouth. This is where I use an electric razor as it doesn't irritate the nerve endings. I then shave using a razor on all other areas. Always Moisturize your mouth /neck area immediately after this. Even let a little stubble grow as much as possible so that you can reduce your shaving as much as possible. This will help on the grand scheme.
Not only do Fever Blisters effect your mouth.. but also your mind. I can tell a day or so earlier as my thoughts become foggy and I am unable to write code or struggle with higher concentration. When I see these warning signs.. I know to increase lotion and moisturizer.
Also lastly.. you are highly infectious during an outbreak and never, ever kiss any kids or touch your mouth and touch a kids face etc. You can spread it from your mouth to your eyes also every easily. So never touch both during an outbreak.
Using these random methods above my outbreaks changed from once a month to one or two a year now depending on work & church stress loads.
Hope my personal experience helps.
God Bless
chris