HSV 2 transmission

[curiouscurious]

I kissed a person who I should not have kissed one day and a few days later we had still been continually kissing and he performed oral on me. I did not want this to happen.

A short while afterwards I became sick with a sore throat and had a cold sore on my lip. The sore healed but I felt incredibly sick and ill, with a sore throat and what felt like a fever. I later learned that he had a history of being very promiscuous. I felt the same tingling that I had felt on my lip down there, but I did not find any sores or lesions. I thought it was all in my head but at one point I had been very sleep deprived and sick and looked down on my thighs to see bumps mounted. They didn’t come to stay or be anything significant, I feel like they just popped up this one night in a state of anxiety and sleep deprivation and worry.
I believe he gave me herpes but I am wondering which type you think this might be. I know oral hsv2 is very rare, but in his circumstances I think he might be one of the rare cases.

My “breakout” down there seemed to be so mild that I thought it was for sure hsv1. I know of course I can’t know for sure until I get a blood test, but I thought asking my questions here might relieve some anxiety.

It seems the main site of the blister was my face (maybe he had transmitted this to me a few days before giving me oral, and my body had been fighting off antibodies in advance?) and then my secondary site was my genital region. Do these characteristics sound more so like hsv1 or hsv2?

I know I have read hsv2 sheds from the mouth about 3 days a year. Both hsv1 or hsv2 could be possible. I went to the doctor but the sore was gone and they could not swab it. I went to the doctor again thinking the cold sores had spread only for the doc to tell me I had acne (probably due to all this dumb stress).

I have read that 99% of all oral cold sores are hsv1. Knowing his past definitely raises my suspicions of hsv2. What do you think?

[Terri Warren]

I’m really confused – what do you think, if all that happened is kissing and you received oral sex, that this would be HSV 2? It would be far more likely to be HSV 1- far more likely. Did anyone professional see you when the cold sore was full blown? Was it swab tested? How long was the cold sore present? Can you describe it for me more completely? So your “genital” symptoms were only some bumps on your thigh that went away quickly?

Terri

[curiouscurious]

Initially, when I felt tingling on my lip, I also felt tingling on down there. I thought I was being paranoid but I even felt it when I wasn’t paying any attention to it. Once when I went to the bathroom I wiped and I found something that looked like dried pus. I think I also developed a yeast infection as a result (probably from obsessively checking down there).

I am thinking it is likely hsv2 because of his previous ridiculous sex life. He told me he slept with 30 people and his girlfriend cheated on him with 6 people. I don’t know how truthful that is but I know he has probably had all sorts of infected genitals in his mouth. After all the reading I had done, I assumed that those that actually get oral hsv2 are those that come in constant contact with infected genitals. Nobody saw me when the cold sore was full blown. There was no swab. It was one bump and I believe more may have popped up but did not blister or scab over, so they may have just been pimples.

I am about to start my period and I feel some tingling right now. It is an odd feeling. I have read that the menstrual cycle often triggers outbreaks. The cold sore was present for about 10 days.

I also thought it would likely be hsv2 because after the cold sore left and my body “fought” the infection, I am still experiencing some tingling down there. I read that usually hsv1 genital infection occurs once and most often never again.

In the case that it is genital hsv1, do you know what the transmission rate might be for me to spread this to someone in the future? I have read different things, like hsv1 genital infection is so mild and the shedding statistic is so low that in some instances rate of genital hsv1 is of little concern. Do you feel like this is true?

Thank you so much for your input. Of course I need a blood test to determine which type this is. Do you have a suggested duration of time before I should do this (exposure occurred about a month ago)?

Again, thank you so much

[Terri Warren]

The thing is, even if he had HSV 2 orally which is really uncommon, it rarely sheds – you’re right, perhaps 3 days a year. What is the likelihood 1) that he has oral HSV 2 and 2) that on that particular day he would be shedding HSV 2? Compare that to the odds that 1) he has HSV 1 – more than half the population does and 2) that he would be shedding HSV 1 – it happens on 9-18% of days sampled. Far more likely it is HSV 1, if you have herpes at all. Genital HSV 1 sheds on about 5% of days sampled and recurs on average about once every other year.

You didn’t describe the cold sore for me – you said it was a bump – where on your mouth did you get it and did it ever blister or did it just stay a bump? Did it ever form an ulcer or a scab?

Terri

[curiouscurious]

I got the bump underneath my lip and over to the side. I popped it (thinking it was a pimple) but it burned and tingled and hurt – nothing like I had ever felt when I had popped a pimple before. It scabbed over after that and healed.

Do you think it is necessary to educate all my future partners of my genital hsv1, if that’s what this is? Do you have any idea what kind of typical outbreak pattern I can expect for the rest of my life if I have contracted genital hsv1?

I have a feeling he knew he had hsv2 but wouldn’t come right out and say it, he would say things like, “You can get an STD from a toilet seat” making me feel that he had previously been accused of giving women STD’s. If he did have hsv2 genitally, would it be likely he would also have it orally as well, vs. hvs1 on his mouth?

Thank you for all of your answers. I appreciate your time.

[Terri Warren]

So did the bump have anything inside of it, like pus, when you popped it? Honestly it doesn’t necessarily sound like herpes to me but of course it could be. And you have made a HUGE jump to thinking you also have genital infection. Nothing you have described sounds like genital herpes to me so far.

And I think you might have made a big jump to think he also has HSV 2. And to think he also has HSV 2 orally? That’s an even bigger jump

I wonder if when you said you shouldn’t have kissed him you are feeling quite a bit of guilt about this experience. When people have sexual experiences that they feel they probably shouldn’t have had, they really can notice sensations a lot more than they might have before. This might be happening to you.

Terri

[curiouscurious]

Thank you for your insight. You are absolutely right, I could be making this all up in my head… but I do believe what I had on my lip was a cold sore – it tingled and I was very sick for many weeks with flu like symptoms. I had a sore throat and hot/cold spells. That part sounds like herpes, right? I called out twice from work and I haven’t called out in 4 years.

If I did have a cold sore on my lip, it’s possible he could have transferred this down there, though, correct? Is it likely/not likely? Do you have a percentage I can go on at all?

I think the blister did have a tiny but of pus, but not very much. It was very small and when I popped it I just remember thinking that it makes no sense that a pimple that small could hurt so very much after popping… that is why I thought it was a cold sore and ran to Walgreens for cold sore treatment. I believe maybe a small one did form on my upper lip but the cold sore treatment seemed to stop it before anything significant happened. I’ve been stressed at work and at home, so my immune system wasn’t at its best.

If I were to have described something like genital herpes, what would it have been like? There is tingling involved, yes? Prodromal symptoms? Aren’t there often mild symptoms, so mild that people don’t even notice? Aren’t yeast infections common when acquiring hsv1/hsv2? I looked up some pictures on the internet of genital herpes and in a lot of them I couldn’t even see any lesions that I noticed in the pictures. I thought maybe that was my case – that I am not at expert so I didn’t know what I was looking at. I never saw any lesions, I just felt weirdness and then had a yeast infection (I think). I also thought that since it was a lone little bump, it could more likely be hsv2, because most of the pictures of oral hsv1 I see are multiple blisters clustered at the side of a the mouth. My sore throat is still lingering. Do you have any suggestions about how long I should wait for testing?

[Terri Warren]

If he did transfer HSV 1 from his mouth to your mouth then yes, there is a possibility that he also transferred it to you genitally. Your description of your cold sore is iffy – it would have been best to have it swab tested rather than treating with over the counter medicines right away and if it ever happens again I hope you will have it professional evaluated.

If you have never been infected with HSV before, then I would expect you to have genital sores if you contracted this genitally. Again, if you had a blister and it popped and no one looked at it, then there is not way to know what was going on there at this point.

Either HSV 1 or HSV 2 can cause multiple blisters or a single blister, the type does not define how many blisters are present.

Sometimes people have yeast with herpes but not often.

Terri

[curiouscurious]

Thank you for your insight. I really appreciate your time answering my questions.

Do you have any idea if genital to oral transmission is more likely with either hsv1 or hsv2? Is it about the same maybe?

Is it possible he could have infected me down there even though I don’t have blisters in the genital reigion? Do my primary (oral) and secondary (genital) sites play a role at all in why one may break out and the other may not? I have read that it can be transmitted and no breakout can occur. If I got these parts infected on the same day vs a couple days apart, could this make a difference on why one would break out and the other would not?

Which are more likely to be seen with a herpes breakout – bacterial vaginosis or yeast infections?

[Terri Warren]

Mouth to genital infection is far more common with HSV 1 than with HSV 2. I have never in 33 years of practice seen a mouth to genital transmission of HSV 2.
Infection with HSV 1 both orally and genitally can happen with no symptoms at all, that is correct. So as to which is first and second orally and genitally, I can make no sense of out of that or tell you which is which or when and if that would make a difference or not. Honestly, even your description of a cold sore is suspect with a single lip bump. It could be herpes but maybe not and since you’ve not been tested at baseline, as I recall, even if you test positive for HSV 1 when you do test you cannot know if this is new infection or something you got as a child.

We see both BV and yeast in people with herpes.

Terri

[curiouscurious]

How common is a genital to mouth situation in regards to transmission of hsv1 and hsv2? Is one more likely than the other?

How likely is hsv1 to show up after kissing somebody vs. something you have had your whole life? I would assume if my symptoms came a couple weeks after kissing somebody, that they were the person who gave this to me. HSV1, I’ve read, is the “kissing disease” ? yes?

I know there is NO way to tell for sure, I am just wondering if you have any statistics on those who display symptoms within 2 or so weeks after exposure. Thank you so much for your information, Terri.

I really appreciate all you do.

[Terri Warren]

It is more common to transmit HSV 1 from the mouth to the genitals than HSV 2.
It is impossible to know, without an antibody test, if you had the HSV 1 before you kissed the person or not. The average time from contact to infection is 5.5 days.
I rarely see symptoms after 10 days. So yours would certainly be on the long end of things

Terri

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