HSV 2 1.74 & 1.84 IgG

[JJMK]

Hello, Terri.

I had sex with someone about 2 weeks ago who reached out to me on Weds, Oct 11 saying that she had a previous partner of hers test positive for HSV and that she had gotten herself tested. I figured I should also get tested for due diligence. Hers came back negative. But, to my surprise, mine came back positive at 1.74 IgG. I tested again for redundancy, and it came back positive again slightly higher at 1.84 IgG.

Here’s the timeline of my testing. Both were done with Quest HerpeSelect.

10/11: 1.74 IgG
10/13: 1.84 IgG

I have a confirmatory test that I still have not heard back from. But at this point, I’m feeling hopeless about everything.

I have used a condom in all my sexual encounters. I had a long term girlfriend who I knew had HSV 1. We were together for 10 years and mostly had protected sex. I informed her and she got tested and it came back negative.

Since we broke up about a year ago, I’ve had sex with 3 other people. perhaps 5 encounters with the first person. Twice with the second person. Then once with the person I began the story with who started my whole testing journey. She tested negative. Though if I did get it from her, I don’t think it would have shown up on any tests yet due to how recent it was. In all of these encounters, protection was used.

Depending on the results of the confirmatory test, do you feel like a WB would be a good option for me? I live in a county that offers it, though it’s not cheap.

This whole situation just feels surreal. I was confident my test would come back negative due to how careful and low risk my encounters were. I have few, and protection was always used. I know it’s not a guarantee, but, it feels like cruel joke.

[JJMK]

In case it’s helpful, here’s the timeline of my previous sexual encounters detailed in my post above.

The first one who I had about 5 encounters with was about 6 months ago.
The second on who I had 2 encounters with was about 3 months ago.
The third was 2 weeks ago, once.

I’ve never experienced symptoms of any kind. Never had any sores on my mouth or genital region. Nothing that I would consider even close to that. In my first test I also tested positive for HSV 1 at 4.5 IgG.

[Terri Warren]

I’ll be interested in the results of your inhibition assay from Quest. there is solid agreement between people who get negative IA result and go on to get negative western blots. There is less good agreement between people who get positive IA results and go on to do blots – some agree but we see some false positives on the IA as it compares to the blot. Let me know what you get back. Your results are definitely in the possible false positive range.

Terri

• This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Terri Warren.

[JJMK]

After over a week I finally got my inhibition assay results back. I was negative and the IA wasn’t even done.

“The HSV-2 IgG screening assay was repeated on a different platform as part of the inhibition test, and the result was negative; thus the Inhibition result could not be determined.”

I just don’t get how I can test positive on two tests, but don’t even have an index on this one. I should feel relieved, but I’m just exhausted. This has been one of the most harrowing weeks of my life and I just want to work on putting it behind me.

[Terri Warren]

I’m not clear why you think you are testing positive still when you test negative on the IgG lead up to the inhibition assay. There is good agreement between people who get negative IgGs that are run in the lead up to the IA and people who go on to get a negative western blot.

I would believe that you are not infected.
BTW your two positives were definitely low positives and false positives.

Terri

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