Being both open-minded and desperate, I tried drug therapy and immediately got migraine headaches for the first time in my life.
Frustrated with the lack of consistent and lasting results from most of the touted natural remedies for herpes, however, I started developing my own treatment program, based on my family's multi-generational background as herbalists.
Obviously, changes in nutrition and lifestyle were important, but the deep shame and psychological effects of the disease were equally, if not more, important to treat than the outbreaks.
I think that suppression inevitably leads to the disease expressing itself in other ways -- ways that may be more devastating than conventional outbreaks -- so the protocol is not designed to suppress outbreaks altogether, but rather to lengthen the period of time between outbreaks and to shorten their duration and greatly lessen their severity.
The protocol does not cure the disease, nor does it stop all symptoms from appearing.
I learned a great deal from studying how other natural practitioners were treating HIV, especially people who had both HIV and herpes, or who had drug-resistant HIV.
In North America, many people with HIV also have herpes, and many of the same substances that are effective for HIV are also effective for herpes.
The most common homeopathic remedies prescribed in the protocol are Rhus-tox, Mezereum, and Ranunculus, but there are over two dozen homeopathic remedies that I use depending on the symptom picture and another dozen or so herbal substances.
One of the principle natural tools used in controlling herpes has been L-lysine, an amino acid that has been proven to reduce the frequency of outbreaks in some people.
I'm not sure what the answer would be to gaining more support and sympathy for the sufferers of herpes, but it's something we could all work on.