Do the best way to tell the difference between a cold sore vs. a pimple in your lip? In the event you’ve ever had a bump pop up along your lip line (one in all the more painful places to get one, right up there with ear pimples), you’ve probably wondered if it could actually be a chilly sore, also often called oral herpes. These painful red bumps can look pretty similar once they appear along your lip line, but skin experts say the similarities stop on the surface.

In truth, cold sores and pimples on the lips share little or no in common, making them pretty easy to differentiate from each other… once what to search for. Whenever you’ve determined which breed of bump has popped up, you possibly can zap it with the suitable treatment. (Trust us, while we don’t recommend popping a pimple, you really don’t want to attempt to pop a chilly sore.)

With that in mind, we tapped several skin experts and dermatologists to search out out the differences between cold sores and pimples, how you possibly can prevent them from popping up, and the way you possibly can treat them should they arise.

• Tracy EvansMD, is a board-certified dermatologist and medical director of Pacific Skin and Cosmetic Dermatology in San Francisco.
• Adam FriedmanMD, is a professor and chair of dermatology at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences in Washington, D.C.
• Joshua DraftsmanMD, is the director of cosmetic and clinical research in dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in Recent York City.
• Sejal ShahMD, is a board-certified dermatologist in Recent York City.

• What is a cold sore?
• What are the early signs of a cold sore?
• What is a pimple?
• How can you tell if you have a pimple or a cold sore?
• Can you squeeze a cold sore?
• How do cold sore and pimple treatments differ?
• How long do cold sores and pimples last?
• How do these bumps affect your brain?

“‘Cold sore’ is a commonly used term for any sort of sore along the sting of the lips (called the vermilion border),” says Tracy EvansMD, a board-certified dermatologist in San Francisco. “But a true cold sore is a spot or blister attributable to the herpes simplex virus-1, or HSV-1.” These viruses are commonly often called oral herpes.

Most persons are exposed to the oral herpes virus during childhood, but only about 30% of individuals actually get clinical cold sores, says Adam FriedmanMD, chair of dermatology at The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. Based on the World Health Organizationgreater than 3.7 billion people under the age of fifty (that’s 67% of the population) have HSV-1, though most cases are asymptomatic.