Nose sore - cold sore?

Hi,

I was diagnosed with crohns disease in 2001 and have coped quite well with the disease. However, this year I have been suffering a relapse (since May) and still feeling generally unwell.

Yesterday my nose started to feel sore, was very red and swollen. It now appears that I have a large cold sore all over the tip of my nose and it is spreading more and more by the hour. I have blisters, it remains very red, very sore and I know it will begin to scab over in the next few days (if it stops spreading!) Feeling very miserable about it and don't really want to leave the house!!

I have had one of these sores before and it took over my whole nose over a period of 3-4 weeks... It did not react to cold sore remedies at all and they almost seemed to irritate it more. I have been to the doctor's walk in centre today and explained the situation about my crohns disease and how I do not believe I have a cold sore, but the nurse would not believe me. She has given me oral cold sore tablets but I am not confident they will make any difference. Does anybody know what these sores are or how to treat them? With it being the festive period I cannot get hold of my specialist or GP so I'm unsure what to do since not many people have an understanding of crohns... I am hoping I will be able to stop it from getting as awful as last time, surely there must be something I can put on it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

Greetings and welcome

Fortunately or unfortunately, you are not alone.

If I was in your position, I would personally take a quality B complex vitamin (a vitamin that contains a bunch of the B vitamins) as there are a variety of B vitamin deficiencies that can cause sores in the orofacial region and Crohnies are at great risk for such deficiencies.

Ugh, poor you. I know what it's like. I had one that took over one side of my nose and all round my mouth. I felt like wearing a paper bag over my head when I had to go out. That was when I was flaring badly and still undiagnosed, so probably very run down.
How are they treating this recent flare? Are you seeing any improvement?

Yes - I have gotten them on and off - really, really SUCK!.....I try to use cold sore cream (Zovirax is one) - which helps to dry everything pu a little quicker, but mostly it is a waiting game until it heals up on its' own.....

Ditto the wanting to wear a paper bag! That happened a couple years ago now when I had a bout of strep, the next day my entire nose, both nostrils in/out had broken out in sores.....AND I still had to go to work!

Thanks for the advice, doesn't sound like there is a lot I can do but hope it gets better soon!! I'll try some vitamins, haven't been eating very well for the past 6 months with my flare up so it could be that I am lacking in vitamins. Cold sore remedies don't tend to do much and they seemed to make it spread more last time, so I am reluctant to use them again.

Luckily I'm not in work at the moment as it's Christmas holidays but also depressing that I don't want to leave the house now so wasting my holidays!!

For this flare up, I was given an 10 week course of steroids in July but they didn't seem to do much and the blood tests were still showing high levels of inflammation. Since then, I have started taking azathioprine, as well as the asacol I was already on, but have been told they could take a number of months to kick in properly and I'm still only on 75mg so quite a small dose. Have been feeling very sick since starting the azathioprine and still in a lot of pain. I might need to have another course of steroids if I am no better in the next few weeks, but they mess up sleeping patterns etc I hate taking them. I am going to see a nutritionist in a few weeks too to see if there are any special diets I can try so hoping I will start to feel better soon!!

Best of luck with the nutritionist. Let us know what they say!

I was getting a lot of sores around my nose and corner of my mouth. Turns out I was deficient in B2/Riboflavin. A B2 supplement helped this go aay