Equivocal IgG after 4 weeks. Move on or should I be concerned?

[shouldibeworried]

Hi Terri, thanks for helping. I am a 32 yo married male from India. I took an STI panel test 4 weeks post an exposure and my results were as follows –
HSV 1 – IgM 1.37 (Negative) and IgG 1.66 (Negative)
HSV 2 – IgM 4.1 (Negative) and IgG 10.24 (Equivocal)

I will give you a timeline of the events. Please advise if I should be concerned or just move on. The last 1 month has been the most anxiety filled stressful month in my life so far.

March 12 – Day of exposure. I had an encounter with a girl from an erotic massage parlour. Both of us were naked. She might have sat on my groin area for a few seconds maybe. There was no intercourse or genital to genital rubbing. She gave me a handjob. After that we were lying naked next to each other hugging each other with our legs intertwined. My thighs might have rubbed against her groin or genital area for a few seconds or so (maybe).

March 20 – 8 days post exposure. I felt a bit exhausted but I was drinking and partying with lesser sleep over the weekend. Felt fine after a good night’s sleep

March 23 – 11 days post exposure. Felt mild chills and a bit feverish at work. Symptoms subsided later the same day

March 20 to 24 – felt slight pain in the testes.

March 24 – 12 days post exposure. Felt mild stinging in my groin area and saw that there were 2 pale yellow (I think so or they looked pale white) sores distant from each other. One was on the groin close to the inner thigh and the other was where hair starts to grow in the upper groin. I popped them both and they turned into open sores which dried up completely around March 26. After popping them open, the open sores caused zero or minimal pain when sweat or urine got in touch with the open sores.

March 26 – had back pain and went for jog after which I was completely exhausted. Felt normal after a good night’s sleep

March 28 – 16 days post exposure. Sent pics of the almost healed sores to a dermatologist and explained him the exposure risk. He said risk was almost NIL.

[shouldibeworried]

And also said that the sores looked like healing folliculitis as they were around a hair follicle. He didn’t recommend I get tested for HSV.

From March 28 till now – I’ve been experiencing slight muscle pains in my legs. I was recently tested with a B12 deficiency as well. But the muscle pain was mostly there on the days I was so anxious about HSV.

Apr 8 – took a test and the results are as above. Consulted again with my dermatologist. He assured me that I don’t have to worry and the equivocal is just because of the sensitivity of the test. He said I don’t need repeat testing for HSV as this test after 28 days is conclusive enough.

Do you agree with my dermatologist’s assessment? What do you recommend for me? I am worried about passing it on to someone in case I have it?

What do you think was the risk from the exposure? Should I be worried about the results or just put my anxiety to rest?

[Terri Warren]

I don’t believe that your experience presented any risk from the acquisition of HSV to your genital area. None. You should completely ignore any IGM testing that was performed, as that was an error. Anything that’s been happening to you since then is almost certainly unrelated to herpes but likely related to worry about having herpes possibly.

Terri

[shouldibeworried]

Wow. Thank you so much, Terri. So, I need not worry about the equivocal IgG also given the negligible risk?

[Terri Warren]

I must admit I’m a little confused about the IgG results as I looked back upon them. I am assuming that you are not in the US because the index value you gave for an equivocal result is definitely not the same as it would be here. Can you share with me the actual ranges on the test that you took – they should be on the lab report.
What is the cutoff for positive?

Regardless of this, the experience you had did not present a risk for herpes.
I don’t know anything about your sexual history before this encounter – is it possible that you were infected by some other sexual encounter around this time?

Terri

[shouldibeworried]

Hi Terri, Cutoff for positive is >11 as mentioned in my report. I guess the index value here is expressed as ten times of what is there in the US.

This was the only sexual encounter I had last month. Before this encounter all the previous ones were just handjobs or boobjobs for the last one year with all the partners wearing pants. And the last report I took around May 2022 had a negative IgG result for HSV2 and all other STIs.

And is it safe to assume that if I had acquired HSV2 90 days before or even earlier to this test, the IgG value would have been a high positive in this test? But, to clarify, there was no other risky exposure in the past 1 year after the May 2022 test except for the 12 March 2023 one.

So, please let me know if I can let this equivocal result go and move on or if there is cause for concern.

If yes, are equivocal values quite common in the general population?

[Terri Warren]

Sorry, missed that cutoff. yes, I believe you should let the equivocal go and move one. They are also very common in the US, yes

Terri

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