Oral HSV2 Swab Positive

[Placafd]

I had about half an hour or more of giving oral sex to a girl I met randomly near the end of the summer. I then used a condom for sex and very briefly rubbed my penis against her crotch before putting the condom on and going inside her. About 5 or 6 days later when I got home, I shaved and noticed 3 lesions on my face: chin, under lip, side of lip. Then one appeared on my lip. I texted her to ask if she’d ever had herpes or cold sores, and she said now that I’d mentioned it there was something going on on her genitals, like bumps. The following day I had a horrible sore throat, pus, fever, and that lasted about 4 days. During this time my throat had a lot of stuff on it and swallowing hurt, etc. I had a throat swab done for strep which came back negative, and then also the culture came back negative. I went to an urgent care, an std clinic, and my primary, and they didn’t seem to think my face looked like herpes. Nonetheless, one day or two later I noticed one of the lesions spreading it’s edge with small bubbles. At this point I got a prescription for Famvir just in case it was herpes. When I went back to the std clinic for testing, the nurse practitioner swabbed one of my sores which was scab like on my face and it came back positive for HSV2 as I found out with a phone call. The girl is waiting several weeks for her blood test, but saw several doctors and NP’s at clinics and received different visual diagnoses–one said yes it’s herpes, another that it may not be anything but razor burn.
After doing reading online, I have discovered how rare getting only oral HSV2 is. I think a factor for me might be the extent and length of time I went down on her, and that I had just shaved before we hung out. I also, whether it matters or not, switched between anilingus and cunnilingus. I have several times inspected myself closely in my genital region and seen no sign of sore, no itching, and nothing out of usual down there. I also had the std clinic NP inspect my genitals which she saw nothing on. My question is: if I’ve contracted oral HSV2 only, as it seems, what risk is there that I could give a girl HSV2 by giving oral sex to her when I have no sores? My primary doctor, once given my diagnosis, told me to merely avoid all contact when I’m around an outbreak period and have sores healing or forming, but other than that, I don’t need to worry about it. I even asked at what point should I say to a girl I have oral herpes, and he admitted getting sores himself on his face, and said again I don’t need to say anything if I’m not having an outbreak. I asked him twice the same question, as I couldn’t believe he’d tell me that. As of now, several weeks later, there are just two small scabs left about to fall away. Thanks for reading such a long explanation and question

[Terri Warren]

Gosh, I answered this and now the response is not here, not sure what happened there. Sorry about that.
You have a very classic oral acquisition of HSV 2 and I agree that the duration of the oral sex is a huge factor here. It is rare to have only oral HSV 2 that is absolutely correct. We know that at least 95% of people who are HSV 2 seropositive shed virus from the genital tract if we look for 4 months of daily home swabbing using the most sensitive PCR test. You might well be an exception.

Having HSV 2 orally basically vaccinates you against genital HSV 2 and the good news is that HSV 2 orally rarely sheds or recurs. One study found that HSV 2 sheds virus on about 3 days out of a year. But you will always test positive for HSV 2 by IgG blood test and you should know that and not get it confused with having genital infection. Whether you should disclose or not is not as clear cut as it might seem since the virus orally is so inactive. I think maybe you should disclose but I am going to run that question by my colleague Anna Wald today and see what she thinks about that.

Terri

[Author]

Posts