Hopefully this is a good thing

[User121212]

Long story short:

Dated a girl for 8 years (monogamous) and split 8 months ago. Back in January had one brief casual hookup with a several year friend. Less than 5 mins total (maybe 3-4mins oral and 30 seconds unprotected penetration before getting interrupted).

Shortly after went to doc and had test done for all things STD just to be sure. Came back positive (IGG) for HSV 1 & 2. Was pretty much devastated and started learning A LOT very quickly.

Went back to doc and asked for values associated with each test. Was told that the results didn’t have values just a positive or negative indication. They said they even called the lab to confirm. This started making me pretty skeptical.

I told both the long time GF and the one time brief friend hookup and both got tested. Both came back negative across the board. Those are the only 2 interactions since 2009.

Decided to get western blot done as I had read this was the gold standard. Test would have been 8 weeks post the very very brief interaction. It came back positive for type 1 and indeterminate for type 2.

The type 1 could make sense being both mom and sister have had cold sores their whole lives. The indeterminate for type 2 is where I’m a bit confused.

At this point only having interactions with the 2 people (both who tested negative) over the last 9 years how do I interpret this? Do I assume I’ve got cross reactivity from long time HSV 1 or just happen to have the protein in my blood that causes the indeterminate?

With only 1 extremely brief (negative tested) encounter any other encounter would have had basically years to build antibodies.

Thanks for the help.

[Terri Warren]

I would recommend that you interpret the indeterminate results as a negative. You could repeat the Western blot three months from the first one and if that one is also indeterminate, the university would recommend that you consider yourself negative. I have yet to see and indeterminate convert to a positive if the person has not been taking antiviral medicine and has waited at least 12 weeks prior to testing after he concerning encounter. For you, this has been years ago.

Terri

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