one time encounter but on the first day of period

[lostinquestionsParticipant]

Hi Terri,

First of all thank you very much for providing such an opportunity and all your efforts to help people during all these years. I also would like to apologize in advance if I make any linguistic mistakes as English is not my mother-tongue. I have been living in US for 2 years only.

Here is my concern;

I am a male at his late 20s and I had protected sex with a girl around 2,5 months ago. She told me that it is the first day of her period. She performed unprotected oral sex on me for a short time. It was not dark and I have checked her genital area for a while while i was kissing her groin during foreplay. I have not seen any visible sores or blisters. I have not performed oral sex on her, just kisses on the groin. We had protected sex for around 7-8 minutes max. I was always at the top and she was laying down. Since I was known that she was on her period I was careful for not to be so aggressive and trying to not to go so deep but there was still skin to skin contact on our groins I assume. After the sex, naturally I have seen some menstrual blood on the condom and at the bottom side of the root of the shaft. I took a shower right after with soap.

I have sent some messages to her after that night but she did not answered any. A few weeks later she send me a message which states that she got tested positive for HSV2. All I know about her is these and she was a white girl on her early 20s.

I remember that 3 days after that night I had a bad sore throat and had some flu like symptoms. (I experience sore throat 3-4 times a year so i was not surprised) I drank some herbal tea, took some rest and sore throat and flu like symptoms were gone. They lasted only 2-3 days. There was no genital sores or blisters.
I
have a kind of joint/muscle ache on my left buttock which i feel for 1-2 days and do not feel another 3-4 days then it comes back again. I feel it for almost 2 months. I am not sure if it is a real ache or just my paranoia about the neuralgia due to herpes.

I have always used condoms in my life. Even with my girlfriends as it is not a big problem for me and I did not wanted them to use pills in early ages.

It has been 2,5 months after that night and I live in a huge anxiety and fear as I do not know what I will do if I suddenly start to have severe outbreaks. I got tested for other STIs (including HIV but not herpes) a few days ago and all the results are negative.

My question is;

What is my risk of acquiring HSV2 from that night? Is it possible to have no sores or blisters but only a sore throat and flu like symptoms for 2 days?

Additional info: I am originally from a country where HSV1 prevalence is extremely high over (90% at my age) but HSV2 prevalence is quite lower than US. My sister always have cold sores and we grew up in a culture that social kissing is more common than anything else. So the probability that I am HSV1 positive is quite high.

I hope I will not loose my mind due to anxiety during waiting for your answer. I live like a wreck for 2 months…

Thanks a million in advance

[Terri WarrenKeymaster]

Your English is excellent. I understood everything you said easily.
The risk of you getting herpes from a single encounter using a condom is extremely low! If you were going to get symptoms of herpes at this encounter, you would have had them within 2 to 10 days. The symptoms of sore throat and buttocks pain on and off are not suggestive of genital herpes to me. May I ask why, when you got tested for STDs, you did not have them include herpes testing? Have you ever been tested for herpes in the past by antibody test?

If I had to guess the odds, it would be far smaller than one chance in 1,000 that you would be infected.

Please let me know if you have other questions, you have two left on your subscription.

Terri

[lostinquestionsParticipant]

Hi Terri,

Thank you very much for your fast response. I am a lot less anxious right now. Still I need to ask a few questions.

I had sore throat and fatigue starting the 3rd day after the night. Symptoms last only 2-3 days. So it is within 2 to 10 days. What I am not sure is; can somebody have fatigue and sore throat (i assume they are flu like symptoms) but not any genital sores or blisters in his non-primary infection? Is flu like symptoms are more likely to be seen accompanied with actual genital sores in primary infections? If they do have symptoms; how long usually people experience the flu like symptoms? I am so sorry if i sound too paranoid… I just want to hear the reason which made you think that my sore throat and flu like symptoms are not typical.

I was also too scared after I read online that a female usually sheds around her period. I thought it is valid for every female and I thought since she was on her period she was definitely shedding at that time. I hope I was wrong.

I got tested for the same panel last year it was negative for all. No, I have never get tested for herpes. Unfortunately, before I receive that text message I was not aware of herpes. Since it is very rare in my country i have never heard of it at all.

I am an exchange student in US and it is my last year in the University. When I am done, I will be back in my home country. However, now I am far away from my parents, my brother, my sister and all my close friends. I felt too weak to deal with the reality alone if i would be tested positive with genital herpes. I have almost never had unprotected sex in whole my life so I was almost sure that i am not positive for HIV and all the other STDs in the panel are easily curable that I can cope with. I just wanted to get tested for them first to have enough courage to get tested for herpes too. I have not had sex with anybody else after that night and I am not going to have sex with anybody before i get a negative result for herpes for sure. After I read your answer, I felt a lot better. Since it has been almost 3 months, which is good to get tested for herpes, I think I will get tested soon instead of waiting to come back to my country. Sorry, I know it sounds like i am too coward…

My other questions are;

1) Is it likely for somebody to get infected from the skin on the groins or upper thighs (due to the possibility of asymptomatic shedding from the partner at the same area)? I ask this because in my case, my genital have not had any contact to her vagina or any other part of her lower body without condom but of course my groins and upper thighs/legs touched hers during intercourse.

2) If somebody is HSV1 positive and got infected at some point with HSV2; can he/she start to experience frequent recurrences (5-6 times a year) of severe outbreaks after staying asymptomatic for months or years even if his/her immune system works just as good as before. How likely is this?

I am so sorry for my long post.Thanks a lot in advance for your answers. I hope i do not waste your time.

Best regards

[Terri WarrenKeymaster]

Fatigue sometimes accompanies a first infection, but the more likely flu symptoms are low grade fever, achiness, headache. These are most often accompanied by genital lesions. Sore throat is only a herpes symptom if you were the giver of oral sex to the woman and contracted herpes in your mouth, which you did not do. While it is true that some women shed more virus around the time of their period, that is not true across all women, no. Sometimes the period is a marker around which people might have symptoms – like they might have symptoms right after their period or mid-cycle in their period. It is not true that all women shed virus more while they are having their period.

The skin of the thighs and groin is thick skin and virus cannot be shed without symptoms from these areas. It is only shed without symptoms from the genitals specifically because the skin is so thin there.

If someone has HSV 1 already and then acquires HSV 2, they are a little less likely to have dramatic symptoms. When you talk about frequent recurrences after new HSV 2 infection, do you mean oral or genital recurrences?

It sounds like you are pretty alone here and this has to be a scary time for you but I am hopeful that things will turn out well for you. You can do the test online if you wish. If your HSV 2 test is positive, remember that you cannot know if this person infected you or you were infected without symptoms by someone else in the past. Condoms reduce the risk of transmission certainly but are not perfect, as you already know.

You have one follow up question available with this subscription if you would like to ask me something else.

Terri

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