Saturday 17 September 2011

What is the difference between canker sores and herpes?

There is often confusion between canker sores and cold sores. In a nutshell, canker sores are painful ulcers, or open sores, on the inner membranes of the mouth and cheek, or can resemble pimples on the tongue. Canker sores are not considered to be contagious and are of uncertain origin.
Cold sores, on the other hand, are small red blisters that generally affect the mouth and facial areas, but usually appear on the lip and outer edge of the mouth. In contrast to canker sores, cold sores are extremely contagious and are most often caused by the Herpes Simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). More importantly, when oral herpes lesions and/or its contents come into direct contact with the genital area through oral-genital sex, genital herpes most likely will develop.

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