Could I have been infected recently?

[newpatient]

Last week I was diagnosed via swab test with GHSV. I am going to call on Monday to see if they typed the culture so I will know whether it is HSVI or HSVII. I am pretty sure it will be HSVII since I have had oral HSVI since I was very young.

My question is, is it possible I contracted this from one of my recent partners?
There have been two.

Partner #1: Friend and spent one day together being intimate in early December of 2017(appr. 4 times). Within 3 days of having both oral and genital intercourse, I developed an OB on my lips…a pretty bad one. I didn’t think much of it since I have had outbreaks after whiskers scratched my lips before while kissing. I also developed a yeast infection. I know it was a yeast infection since had several of them. I administered Monistat three and it went away. Oral OB cleared up and I never gave it a second thought. Never a vaginal outbreak that I was aware of after this.

Partner #2: New relationship. Intimate the first time on January 1, 2018. This is a long distance relationship and he is a busy person so we saw each other several times being intimate each time until last time around mid-February 2018 approximately. We haven’t been together since but are still in contact and planning to be together again as soon as his life calms down a little.

Diagnosis: 5 -6 weeks after last sexual encounter. I went to my physician to see about having some genital skin tags cryogenically removed. I expressed to him that I wanted them removed since lately I could feel them rubbing on my clothes and it was uncomfortable. He noticed a small lesion and asked me if it hurt when he punctured it for swab test. It didn’t. I didn’t even know it was there. I could not feel anything raised there. He could see it and swabbed it. The only symptom I may have had was one night and one morning of vertigo. I have never had that before. Also, just general achie-ness. Thank you

[newpatient]

I just spoke with the nurse at my doctors office. She confirmed Type II. I am going to have blood drawn this afternoon since I think I understand it might reveal whether this is a new or old infection.
Question 2 is: which test specifically do I need to request?
I think there is one you said is useless.

Thank you.

[newpatient]

Question 3: Since I had an oral outbreak after partner number 2, would it be common to have an oral outbreak of Type 2 but not a genital until 2+ months later and no more oral outbreaks of 2?

[Terri Warren]

You would want to ask for an Igg test for HSV 2. It may be way too late to sort out if you have new or old infection. Half the people with new HSV 2 will produce antibody within 3 week of infection. Your contact back in December is way past that, right? Even the January contacts are way past that. You aren’t reporting any new partner recently so I would fully expect your antibody test to be positive by now.

It might happen that you would get oral and genital outbreaks at the same time but not always.

You could have had herpes for many years and just didn’t know it. At this point, I don’t know how you are going to know when you were infected.

Terri

[newpatient]

Thank you Terri. In some stupid way that makes me feel better. Question 3….could the mouth outbreak have been HSV2 even though I have had HSV1 for years?

And here’s a crazy thing….for me, given the choice between oral and genital herpes, I would choose genital in a second! My oral outbreaks besides being ugly are so painful and have covered large areas around my mouth. And it’s sooooo contagious. I didn’t even know I had genital herpes! Thanks much!

[Terri Warren]

I seriously doubt that your oral outbreaks are HSV 2. I suspect it is far more likely that you have genital infection with HSV 2 only and you have oral HSV 1.

This is your final post on this subscription. If you have more questions, feel free to renew

Terri

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Terri Warren.

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