CS anon here. I have had cold sores since I was a child before I ever kissed anybody. Either my mother or my grandmother that both had them kissed me during an outbreak or shared a utensil with me. Perhaps it was a side effect of a vaccine (shingles is a side effect of vaccines and that's the same thing). Well, anyway, I haven't had one of these little niggers on my face in 7 years and I thought maybe it was gone permanently, it wasn't. I had a 24 hour flu and immediately after that got a cold sore and I caught it quickly. I have a very old and expired bottle of Acyclovir (herpe pills that work really well) but it expired 7 years ago. I took them anyway and they worked just fine. Another stupid pharma tactic to get you to buy more pills even though they are very shelf stable. Discuss.