Although these are a little on the expensive side, using these patches dramatically decreased the painfulness and the healing time of my cold sore. It also seemed to prevent the cold sore from getting any more swollen or increasing in size. In addition to getting rid of the cold sore faster it sort of made it less visible so I felt more confident than normal with a cold sore.

The only complaint I have about these patches is that the skin that came in to contact with the patch became very red and dry after use. I am willing to put up with that but be aware that you may have to use plenty of moisturizer to repair the skin!
All in all, this is a great product and I will continue to use it!

These do work quite well however I wish they could be a little less expensive as I go through a pack almost every time I have a cold sore. I would also suggest not wearing them while eating as this usually just wastes them.

I (unfortunately) had the pleasure of testing this out last week. I say unfortunately because cold sores are gross, let's be honest. When my husband came home with this from the drugstore I was dubious. I have to say that I'm so pleasantly surprised with how well these work. It doesn't cure it over night, but my cold sore outbreak lasted a shorter amount of time (by a few days) and it wasn't as severe as it usually is. Most importantly it was far less noticeable. I will admit I snorted when I first saw the commercial with the model putting her lipstick on top of the patch and meeting a cute guy. But you actually can put lipstick and makeup on this. People in the office were saying they couldn't even see it on my face.

The trick is to re-apply new ones throughout the day (I used 2-3 in a 24 hour period). They start to become more noticeable as the day wears on because they get wrinkled from smiling, chewing, etc.

I also found that my cold sore was less painful that usual. It's not cheap for a package (around $20) and I used the entire thing for my outbreak, but for the embarrassment and the discomfort, I think it's worth it. I will absolutely use these again for my next outbreak.

totally thought it was just a marketing ploy when i saw the commercials. ITS NOT! THEY TOTALLY WORK!!!

I so badly wish i had discovered these sooner!! they totally ease the stress and pain of having a cold sore, im always worried about bumping it or smiling and it cracking or u forget and before you know it your face is bleeding or oozing. these healing patched completely protect the sore, help it heal, ease pain and take almost all the redness away!! Nothing worse than waiting for a slow healing scab to finally disappear! this healing patch practically made that stage non-existent, it keeps it clean and practically unnoticeable! its a dream! the only thing was that it cant breath at all, so during the weeping stage i changed it often. cleaned my cold sore with tea tree oil and hydrogen peroxide and threw another one on. LOVE THESE! ABSOLUTELY RECOMMEND

THANK YOU POLYSPORIN!!!!!!! FINALLY SOMETHING THAT WORKS!!! covered up the red blistering coldsores making me much less self conscious, felt immediate relief when using the patch and it made a huge difference after just one use. will be keeping these stocked in my house, would recommend to anyone

I have been using this product for the last few outbreaks and I love them! I usually get a cold sore every time the weather changes and always used abreva. With the abreva I woud have to reapply everytime I ate or drank anything which was annoying. The patches at walmart are 16.97 tax and Abreva is 18.97 tax. With the 5.00 off coupon on polysporins website it is way more of a deal! plus I can use more abreva cream than patches. I usually get the sore on my bottom lip right in the middle and find if you use nail sissors to cut the patch in half when it is still on the applicator it fits perfectly with the rounded edge on the bottom of the lip allowing me 30 patches out of the 15 patch box. if you cut yourself you wounldnt just put cream on your cut you would also put a bandaid on it right?

Cold sores routinely affect my family. Two out of 5 of us get them often. We have tried everything from prescription creams to oral medication prescribed by the doctor. When we found abreva we were quite happy but still being negatively affected. Then we stumble onto the polysorin cold sore patch. We love it. At the start of a cold sore we place the patch on it starts to heal. I love the idea of a patch because it conceals it & stops it from speading. The wedsite right now is offering a $5.00 coupon for anyone interested in trying them.
http://www.polysporin.ca/p-coldsorehealing

After using this product for the first time I am very impressed. I get a cold sore every two years or so, always in the same spot, very near the corner of my lower lip. Usually it takes 10-12 days for the whole sore life cycle, which is a long time.
This product is meant to be used as soon as possible in order to be most effective-meaning as soon as you feel the tingling/itching.
This time around I did not realize the sore was coming early on and by the time I felt the pain the sore was already 2mm in size. I immediately applied the first patch. Half of the patch was distributed on the lip and the other half on the skin below the lip. Initially due to lack of experience with the product the lower portion of the patch was not applied as smoothly as I would have liked, but since I was staying home I did not replace it-it's a pricey product so it was a shame to waste the patch. I was more careful with subsequent applications and became more proficient at it to the degree that the patch would virtually disappear and blend with the skin.
I left the patch for the rest of the day(6 hours) until I discovered that eating/drinking and brushing teeth would make the portion of the patch that was placed on the lip to lose its adhesive properties. I simply replaced the patch and went to sleep. The next morning I was surprised to discover that the sore remained the same size and was not increasing in size. I did find that the patch was too large and with multiple applications was beginning to irritate the skin below the lip. So I experimented with cutting the patch to different sizes but still ensuring I did not compromise the ease of application and adhesiveness. I did not apply any make-up over it as I suspected it would not look that great, plus I found that I didn't NEED to apply any makeup to camouflage the sore. The patch made it virtually invisible to others. My husband was very impressed.
Overall by end of day 5 the sore was gone- nothing short of a miracle for me since healing time was cut in at least half.
I did find that the patch lasted less than the 8 hours promised, more like 5-6, but I suspect that had something to do with my frequency of eating/drinking/teeth brushing. I used on average 4 patches per day for 3 days and then I used the cutoff portions of the patch for the 4th day. Day 5 I did not need to use anything at all.
Pricey product, but I found it to be well worth the money. I suspect it would be less effective on a well developed sore with crusting which might explain the previous negative review. Like anything out there, you need to try a product on yourself to see if it works for you. It did for me and I will be using it in the future. In fact I will keep a couple of the patches in my wallet for easy access. Highly recommended!

I think these are fantastic! I was getting a cold sore at night so the next day I went and bought them. The cold sore that had already started did not get any bigger yay! And then a new one started.....I got the patch on it immediately and within two uses of the patch it was completely gone! I don't find it hurts at all to remove them (maybe the previous person has an extremely low pain tolerance) and will definitely be keeping this product in my medicine cabinet all the time.