How likely are the HSV2 test results below to be false positives ?

[WHC]

A non English speaking friend was diagnosed with shingles for the second time in 12 years by a PA. Immediately after that, a dermatologist she went to for tinea versa color diagnosed the remains of the shingles as herpes 2 (with no scraping or testing). I convinced my distraught friend to be tested for Shingles, Herpes I and II. About a week later, after the first set of results came back, she was tested by a different lab. Here are the results;

5/8 Quest lab: Vermicelli Zoster IgG 4.52 HSV 1 HgG = “Not detected.” HSV 2 HgG = 2.57
5/19 Lab Corp: Vericella Zoster IgG > 4000 HSV 1 HgG = < .91 HSV 2 HgG = 1.90

She last had sex with her husband about 12 years ago. She has never had a herpes outbreak she is aware of. The only other instance she can possibly link this to occurred about 35 years ago. In both cases of the diagnosed shingles, the sores did not cross the mid body line.

She said over the years she has had numerous fever blisters inside her mouth, yet she does not test for HVS 1.

[Terri Warren]

So blisters inside the mouth are normally not herpes, they are canker sores, the cause of which we do not know.
She is HSV 2 positive by antibody test, yes. She tests positive in the low positive range so technically it would need a confirmatory test to know that it is accurate (anything between 1.1 and 3.5 needs confirmation).

Were was the outbreak on her body?
95% of the US population at age 45 will test positive for Varicella Zoster (which I think you mean) so that just means they had chicken pox as children, nothing more. Shingles only recurs in about 4% of people who get it once, so shingles is pretty unlikely here, though possible.

Terri

[Author]

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