I somehow always seem to get a cold sore breakout whenever an important event is coming up, and would be scrambling to the local drug store to get one of those super expensive intensive cold sore treatments, which are supposed to heal the cold sores overnight. The annoying thing is they usually cost around $20 or more, and some of them only have about two "doses", such as the ones that come in the glass vials with the cotton tips. It turns out that there is a much cheaper alternative - Bactine. If you look at the label on it, it contains the exact same active ingredient as the much more expensive cold sore treatments, benzalkonium chloride, and at the exact same strength. Plus Bactine also has lidocaine as a pain reliever. Some people have advised to soak a qtip in the Bactine and rub it into the cold sore aggressively. Now, this isn't the same ingredient as Abreva, which is docosanol, but it is the ingredient used in many of it's competing products.
