recent oral to gental contact

[matt4]

Good afternoon,

A old friend from college was in town and we decided to fool around. She performed oral sex on me, thats it. After receiving oral sex from her, I noticed she had a small cold sore below her lower lip (make-up had it covered). When I asked her what that was she stated it was just a cold sore from having the flu from the week prior. She stated she did not have any STDs. This all occurred Nov. 25. Two days later I stated to feel really sick – fatigue, sore throat, common cold/flu symptoms. I did not notice anything out of the ordinary on my penis at that point. About a week later during the first week of December I felt a slight raw feeling on the left side of my shaft just underneath the head of my penis. I though it was chaffing/rubbing from masturbating (which has happened) or my work pants rubbing that area. I still did not see anything on my penis. Toward the second week of December I started to get sick again with a cough, congestion, and general fatigue. I still felt a mild “rubbing” sensation on the said area, however, I noticed some mild redness on the skin and small amount of dried skin that I just rubbed off. At this point, I still have redness, but I noticed that “rubbing” or “tingling” feeling can be pinpointed to a very very tiny little dot beneath my head on my shaft, it is so small its impossible to see unless i feel for it first, however it feels like a little cut.

Backtrack to Friday (yesterday), I went the ER at a hospital just to see if I could get blood work done to see if I had herpes. I felt that the cold/flu symptoms might be due to my body reacting to the herpes virus. Both ER doctors did not buy that(it is flu season). I showed the doctor my penis and he said “I have seen genital herpes and thats not it” he said it did not look like herpes and “It is sometimes possible to get genital herpes from oral sex.” He gave me Valtrex or its generic version, 500MG twice a day for 10 days, just to give me peace of mind, but both doctors said they were 99% sure i didnt have herped. The doctor also said that if I have no symptoms a few weeks from now its safe to say I don’t have herpes. So long story short, based on other forum questions, I need to get the IGg test! Here are my questions :

1) My friend had a small cold sore under her lower lip, she gave me oral sex, can I get herpes from this? type 1 or 2?
2) Does the condition/symptoms I have sound similar to that of herpes? (especially the tiny little dot that feels like an abrasion)
3) My doctors seemed unconcerned, but not apathetic, maybe I should relax and take their advice?
4)If I should, when should I get a IGg test done? Im currently on day two with the Valtrex, im afraid the medication will effect the test results.

Thank you so much for any help/input…..

[Terri Warren]

1. Yes, you can get genital herpes from receiving oral sex and if you did, it would vey very likely be HSV 1, not HSV 2.
2. It is so hard to say from your description. It seems like at first, you had no tiny lesions at all, that came a little later? If people are going to develop symptoms with new infection (and not everyone does), it is generally between 2 and 10 days from the exposure to the virus. It would have been optimal if a PCR was taken from the place where you have the abrasion feeling, even if the bump did not look like herpes because herpes can look like a variety of things.
3. If you had come to our clinic, we would have gathered a baseline IGG antibody test for HSV 1 and 2 at your very first presentation. That way, since it was just a little while later, we might have been able to help you sort out whether you had HSV 1 going into this experience before much chance to develop antibody had passed. However, it sounds like you really didn’t get seen until about 2 weeks or a little more after the encounter so the antibody test (IgG) would have been difficult to interpret if it had been a low positive. A high positive would have suggested that you had been infected with HSV 1 for a long time. Have you ever in your life had a cold sore on your lip or in your nose? If we had a patient who had received oral sex from someone with an active cold sore, and our patient had never had a cold sore, we would recommend testing by IgG, just because there would certainly be a chance for transmission to occur.
4. You could get an IgG done now – I think we are still about 2.5 weeks out. The I would repeat it at 12-16 weeks if it is negative the first time. Two days of Valtrex would not impact the test results. And 10 days wouldn’t really help you at this point, I don’t think. But if you stop taking it and get more blisters or lesions you may wish to restart. I think most health care providers are simply not aware that taking Valtrex for an extended period of time can impact antibody development. Truth be, 10 days wouldn’t impact it either, so finish if you wish. It sounds like your doctor didn’t give it to you because he thought it was herpes, it gave it to you to ease your mind, does that sound right?

Terri

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