Six to 24 hours before the actual lesion appears, patients may feel some tingling, burning, stinging or pain in the tissue around the lips or eyes. The patient may also feel warmth, redness and swelling as common HSV-1 symptoms. The blisters associated with herpetic lesions generally appear in clusters, forming under the tissue and pushing to the surface. The lesions are infectious, and (no matter how much they itch) patients should not touch or rupture the blisters to avoid spreading the virus to the eyes, fingers, cheeks, nose, or to another person.
The symptoms may vary depending on whether you have primary or recurrent herpetic lesions. Systemic symptoms, such as a fever, headache and sore throat, may accompany a primary outbreak, notes Medscape. Recurrent lesions are typically milder and shorter in duration than the primary type.