I've had genital herpes for many years. It's been a long miserable ordeal. But over the years I've learned some things that have made a big difference.
1. Diet. Some foods aggravate herpes, some help. High lysine foods are good. High arginine foods are bad. Google it. There's lots of info out there about this. I also take a 1000 mg lysine supplement daily. I think doing this and avoiding high arginine foods has really helped to cut the frequency and duration of outbreaks.
2. Stress. Physical or emotional stress really aggravate it.
3. When I have an outbreak I immediately put some raw honey on it. I keep applying raw honey several times per day until it's gone. Before I did this my outbreaks would come about once per month and have several recurrences before they would finally go away. Changing my diet and using raw honey on the outbreaks have reduced my outbreaks to once every several months. And once an outbreak goes away, it stays gone. In the past it may recur several times before finally going way. I think the honey really fights the virus and beats it down.
Acyclovir helps a bit, but only when an outbreak is starting to threaten. Once it starts the acyclovir is useless.
These same things may also help with oral herpes.