Cold sore on lips and how possible they are to spread

[True02]

Okay, let me first say I am rather OCD about venereal diseases and am terrified of them. So I need some cut and dry answers that are realistic and soothing (hopefully). I occasionally once every few months get cold sores on my lips and am terrified once they appear that they could potentially spread to my genitals or other parts of my body. How likely is the spread of a herpes cold sore on my lip if I do not engage in ANY oral sex, or NEVER touch my lips with my hands? Because I make an effort to NEVER touch my lips even when I don't have cold sores. Can sold sores "realistically" even be transfered to other parts of the body if your not having oral sex? What would the chances be and so on? And lastly, a lot of the time I don't even know if the thing on my lip is a cold sore or a pimple--how can you tell the difference? The one I have currently doesn't, itch, or burn, or is painful, it just has a whitehead looking thing in the middle of a red bump on my lip. Would I 100% know, if I got a cold sore, are they usually Obviously different from a pimple on the lip? Please answer thoroughly as I am very distraught about this!

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

I can't tell from you photo if this is a simple pimple or a cold sore.  But if it is a cold sore, and you get them recurrently, it would be highly unlikely that you would transfer this to a new location on your body because you have an established immune response to this particular virus (HSV 1, almost certainly).  If people were able to transfer virus from one location on their body to another, we would see children all the time with genital herpes.  They get cold sores and freely touch their genital area.  But we don't see that.  That's because of the immune response that you have mounted.  I hope this will help to put your mind at rest?

Terri

[True02]

I posted a photo of my suspected cold sore / pimple. It does not tingle or hurt.