Cold sores

[Inanewrelationship]

I am a man in a new relationship with a woman. Today I see that she has an oral cold sore which she states she gets once a year for,the last 5 years. My question is if a person shows oral cold sores for HSV 1, if the had HSV 2 genitally would cold sore also appear on a person. She has has states that she has never had any genital HSV 2 outbreaks. I am not concerned about the HSV oral cold sore as my mother has cold sores and I can only assume as do I, I have just been fortunate enough to never have had an outbreak. I couldn’t seem to be find any information on wether or not a person body would show gentians herpes blisters if they show oral cold sore blisters

Could the same person have oral HSV 1 and get cold sores and have genital HSV 2 and not show cold sores? Can the body show one type of HSV and not the other. She is sensitive to condoms but at this point i don’t feel comfortable not using condoms

[Terri Warren]

I’m not sure I completely understand your question but I’ll try to respond and you can let me know if I have it right.
I think you are asking if a person has cold sores do the necessarily have genital herpes infection. The answer is absolutely not. In the US, 56% of the US population between 14 and 49 has HSV 1 infection (the most common cause of cold sores) and only 16% of that same population has HSV 2 (the most common cause of genital herpes). So you can see that far more people have HSV 1 than HSV 2.

The same person COULD have HSV 2 genitally and HSV 1 orally, yes. If a person has HSV 2 genitally only, they would not demonstrate cold sores, no.

Only antibody testing can help you know for certain if EITHER of you has HSV 2 infection, so until that happens, condoms seem like a good idea to me too.

Terri

[Inanewrelationship]

Thanks for responding so quickly to my question.
Just to clarify a bit more. If a person has both oral hsv 1 and genital Hsv2 is it possible for a person to only show lesions on their mouth for Hsv 1 and and not genitals for Hsv2?

Also I plan on using condoms until testing but am unsure in which blood tests to pursue. I’m from Canada and not even sure if we are able to influence which blood tests are to be used.

[Terri Warren]

Yes, that is possible.
You should obtain a type specific IgG antibody test for HSV 1 and 2. The testing misses about 2 out 10 HSV 1 infections but is far more accurate for HSV 2, which is the one I think you might be most concerned about.

Terri

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