Positive culture-2 negative igg

[As89]

Terry,
Last July I had some pain downstairs and went to the doctor. She took a swab and blood test. Called me back a couple days later.. Positive culture and negative igg. Started on valtrex, didn’t help a bit. Kept taking it, increased my dosage, no relief. Went to see a new doctor a year later. I was still having out breaks and had a rash all over my anus and the entire skin surrounding from the top of my crack to my labia. Doctor took a look and said it did not look like hsv 2 and seemed weird that valtrex didn’t help a bit. Told me stop taking valtrex and to use desitin to heal the skin. Helped a little. Felt like an out break a week later so I came
Back in to see the nurse practitioner (she worked at an std clinic before working at the office) she too said doesn’t look like hsv and looked more like lichen planus. She prescribed clobetesol, which I’ve been using. Also had another blood test after a year and it was still negative. Clobetesol has helped a little bit but not completely. I don’t know where to go from here. I have a sore right now and the only thing that has soothed it is the clobetesol. Doesn’t make it go away just feels a lot better.
Thanks for the help.

[Terri Warren]

You are using a steroid cream and steroid creams normally make herpes worse, not better. Steroids take away the local immune response that you need to make things better with herpes.
If the Valtrex didn’t help, then I suspect that the rash has nothing to do with herpes. In fact, your description of it doesn’t sound herpetic to me.. If you’ve been taking Valtrex for a long time daily, it can impact the test results and cause them to stay negative when indeed you are infected which the culture does suggest. There are rarely false positive cultures. I can’t say never but rarely. I would trust the opinions of the clinicians that you are seeing. You may wish to consider coming off the Valtrex and retesting with IgG about three months later and see what you get.

Terri

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