Heading in to the office with a freshly-minted cold sore isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. So spare a thought for Jackie Henderson — i.e. Jackie O — whose colleagues mocked her mercilessly on live radio for the “glistening” blister on her lip.
“Don’t look at me. It’s just my cold sore, it’s in full bloom right now. It looks gross,” she told co-host Kyle Sandilands, who gleefully dubbed the sore ‘Pamela’.
“My cold sores are usually hideable… but this one’s a beauty, she’s really dark in colour,” the 41-year-old replied, adding that these days she only gets them once every four years.
Cold sores are symptomatic of the herpes simplex virus type one (HSV-1), a lifelong infection that’s often contracted in childhood or adolescence and currently doesn’t have a cure. The blisters tend to be triggered by factors like the flu, windy conditions, hormonal changes and stress.
Although there’s not much that can be done to speed up the healing process, there are ways to conceal cold sores — and it seems Henderson has some great ones up her sleeve. After all, she’s been getting cold sores since she was five, so she knows her stuff.