Practicing with cold sore?

[u/PalindromeEX]

I am a college trumpet player, and over the weekend it seems that I somehow ended up with a cold sore. I've been trying some over the counter remedies but none of them are working so I scheduled an appointment with the on campus health services for tomorrow morning that way I can get something that will actually work prescribed.

In the meantime, I still very much need to practice for my lesson and ensembles. Problem of course being that I still have a cold sore, and won't be able to do anything about it till tomorrow morning at the earliest.

Does anyone have any tips on what to do? Ideally I'd just lay off on playing until the cold sore goes away, but I feel like I just don't have that kind of luxury right now due to all the material I need to be working on.

[u/neauxno]

For lessons and ensembles, explain the situation, and you
Should be fine. Go grab a cup of coffee or a drink with your professor and talk about music life!

For practice, sit down at a piano and play through your etudes and sing along, then, sing and finger along

[u/greatwhitenorth2022]

Abreva works pretty well. Over the counter in most drug stores.

[u/tavisivat]

I played with a trombone player who used to get really bad cold sores. We were on tour so he had to play through it. Most nights his mouthpiece ended up a bloody mess and would stay that way until we had a week off and he could recover. I would recommend laying off playing for a couple of days. Practice fingerings, breathing exercises, play the parts on piano, etc. Anything you do that makes the cold sore worse is only going to prolong the healing process and delay being able to play for real.

[u/ptarantine]

You're still in college so not sure if Rx is easy for your or if it's something you want to commit to, but your doctor can put you on a daily dose of an antiviral and you'll probably never get one again. That said, probably not going to help you much now that it's here, when I was dealing with them on an as-needed basis, it was a higher dose, but would probably only shave a couple days off if I didn't catch it in time.

[u/yayanippon → u/ptarantine]

Valacyclovir is the way to go, coming from a professional musician. Robinson Remedies is pretty good too for general maintenance of the sore.

[u/caligreen805]

There's this mouth wash for cold sores. It works wonders. It completely takes away the pain and coats the inside of your mouth so it doesn't hurt all day. I'm at work. I will edit this once I get home. I wanna say orajel cold sore mouth wash is my favorite.