A myriad of confusing symptoms.

[Robin23]

Initially I’d like to say thank you for all that you do Terri!

April 28: MSM receiving sexual encounter.

Since then I’ve experienced a range of symptoms over the past 12 weeks, I’ll start off with listing any lesions I’ve noticed:
2nd Week (May 7th – 14th) – Growth under penis head that appeared blue underneath the skin, whilst inflamed. Once swelling subsided the same growth appears as a vein, to which I believe this may be a swollen lymph vessel. (This is still visible as of today)
– Cyst on upper pubic area
– Skin colored bump on side of pubic area.
– 4 blood blotches on foot that went away as a large vesicle/boil appeared the next day in the same area
– I also had joint pain in hand & Swollen waist lymph nodes

3rd Week:
– Diarrhea for a day
– Swollen anus
– Joint pain in big toe
– swollen Lymph nodes under chin
– excessive flatulence
– genital chaffing

4th week:
– feeling of having to poop
– chest pressure
– 2 red bumps on leg/itchy

5th week:
– constant stomach bubbling
– excessive flatulence
– diarrhea for 2 days
– rectum pain
– red bumps on sole of left foot

6th week:
– idle pain in left testicle
– anus swelling went down + less gas
– pain under right rib (Gallbladder or liver possibly)

After this point I stopped tracking it, despite still facing symptoms today that have to do with nerve twitching in my penis, under my lip and on my hand tracking the symptoms was causing too much anxiety.

Testing (I’ll list the more definitive tests, I’ve received a lot more repeats):
– 22 Days full panel (Hiv, Gonorrhea, chlam, syphilis): Neg
– 28 Days HIV PCT RNA: Neg
– 73 Days vesicle on foot swab: Neg (3 1/2 day after appearance)
– 74 days syphilis rpr: Neg
– 81 days HIV 4th gen Ag/ab: Neg
– 81 days HSV 1 & 2 specific igG: both .900 (Neg)

Questions:
At this point, I’m still concerned over HSV2 (especially considering the nerve twitches and the fact that everything else has remained neg but hsv is tricky). How likely are my HSV results to be accurate at 81 days?

[Robin23]

Continued:
My Lymph nodes have been active since first appearing 2 and a half months ago, my groin (still active, under chin (subsided) and back of neck nodes (most recent,still active) all swelled up for prolonged periods of time. Is this normal in recent HSV2 infections?

Have you ever seen another case of a man infected with HSV2s lymph vessels to swell up? The only academic research I’ve been able to find on this has attributed it mainly to syphilis.

Prior to the vesicles on my feet at 70+ days, the only other liquid filled lesion was the much larger boil also on my foot. I understand that HSV2 attaches itself to the ganglia nerve system which makes it possible for it to travel to any lower body part (I’ve even spoken to an anecdotal case whis OBs are on his foot), though does this at all sound like HSV2 to you? There were 3 small vesicles, each spread maybe 3cm from each other with very slight inflammation and 0 pain.

I’ve read that swabbing after 48 hours leaves massive room for a false negative, I had these swabbed around 78 hours after appearing. How reliable would you say that those negative results were?

This is honestly just something I’m curious about, thinking towards the future in the event that I do test positive for HSV2. To avoid transmission as much as possible, do you believe that adding an extra layer such as boxer briefs would assist in protecting against viral shedding + the usage of condoms ofc.

Because my blood test was done at 11 weeks and you tend to recommended testing at 12, how likely do you believe that extra week to contribute to a false negative?

When do you recommend re-testing? Would it be logical to retest directly after my lymph nodes have all gone down because that may indicate that I now have a considerable amount of antibodies?

What could all of these symptoms be attributed to? I haven’t had any major health problems in my entire life, so these past 3 months have been very stressful. I appreciate your time & perspective.

[Robin23]

Good afternoon Terri, utilizing my final comment to bump this thread back up to the top as I see that it’s made it’s way downward.

Question:
Regarding current symptoms that I’m still experiencing 12 weeks out:
– My testicles have been in idle pain for the past 3 days now, it feels better when standing, even more sore when sitting and moving it sometimes shoots a sharp pain upwards.

All of these symptoms are beginning to make me think I have some kind of co-infection. Though I’d still wish to hear your opinion on whether or not you believe anything selectively seems like HSV-2 from what I’ve listed.

Thank you.

[Terri Warren]

HSV doesn’t cause testicular pain nor most of the symptoms that you have described.
A test at 11 weeks for HSV 2 is 92% accurate, as compared to the gold standard western blot
I think it would be highly unusual to have HSV 2 vesicles on your foot but not on the site of acquisition. And PCR should be fine 48 hours after lesions show up – they are very sensitive.
I’m not thinking you have HSV 2 here.

Terri

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