Eye herpes?

[Mike1bello]

Hello Terri I have a question and a new issue that I’m dealing with. I have oral herpes and hardly ever get cold sores. Recently last week I developed a very small cold sore on my bottom lip. And when I woke up the other morning I wiped my mouth and then rubbed my eyes without thinking. Since then I have had itching and irritation in my eyes. And a s flesh colored Bump has developed on the bottom corner of my left eye. I went to an eye doctor today and was told I had eye allergies and was prescribed eye drops but the doctor was not able to explain the bump I’m the corner of my eye, and this is what worries me most of all. I’m scared that this bump is a herpes sore, And I’m scared that I transferred the oral heroes virus to my eyes. I’ve been reading info online that is conflicting. I’ve read thah auto inoculation is not likely once the body has a type of herpes in their body. And I’ve had oral herpes for years now. But I’ve also read that the herpes type 1 virus can be transferred to the eyes by auto inoculation. So I’m worried.and don’t know what to think, and I was hoping with your knowledge and experience, that you could clarify.

[Terri Warren]

Good morning Mike,
So when you have oral herpes, the virus is living in the trigeminal nerve group. That nerve group innervates (provides nerves to) the area covering basically the front of your head. People who get cold sores can also get sores in the nose, the chin, the face, the ear, the forehead and sometimes in the eye. People worry about getting herpes in their eye but really, that nerve group supplies the eye so lesions could show up there on their own but they don’t often. I had a long talk with an opthalmologist (eye MD) once about this and it was very interesting. He explained this all to me. Occasionally, he saw HSV 2 in the eye and that was likely acquisition of HSV 2 orally or it could have been autoinoculation from the genital to the eye during a first infection of genital HSV 2. You would not transfer, via your hand, your HSV 1 to your eye as it is already in this nerve group and if you haven’t had ocular herpes by now, getting it very unlikely. I don’t think you need to worry nor would going anything about it be helpful. If you had had herpes of the eye, the eye doctor would have seen it, no worries.

Terri

[Mike1bello]

I saw an optometrist not an opthamologist. Does that make a difference between the two? Forgive me I think I might just he letting my nerves get the best of me..

[Author]

Posts