Recently Tested positive for HSV2

[Bnelly2020]

Hello,

I hope you are doing well. In August, I went to go get my regular STD panel. It’s always been the norm for me to ask for everything. However, now I wonder if I actually was. The nurse didn’t want to test me for HSV, but I asked, and now I regret it. On August 2020 I was tested positive for HSV 2. I didn’t have any symptoms, IGG level was at 1.27. I found a doctor, and he wanted to test me again, in early December of this year, I received the results again and the IGG level was now at 1.18.

Recently, I started getting little bumps on my pinky that come and go and I am wondering if it spread. My doctor thinks its a fungal infection and refuses to swab it. Thus, he prescribed me with antibiotics and Valacyclovir. He also referred me to a dermatologist.

I wanted to know what is the chance of this being a false positive? Should I get the western blot test? Since I am unsure, I am not sure I should disclose my status to someone I am newly dating until I am positive the results are correct (have not been physical and I don’t plan on it anytime soon). Again the IGG level went down from 1.27 in August to 1.18 in December (this month)

Do you encourage people to disclose? The nurse said its not serious, my doctor thinks it is, the government thinks its not..so, what’s the truth. I feel like no one is that educated on it.

[Bnelly2020]

I wanted to clarify testing

August 14, 2020 IGG 1.27

Correction November 17, 2020 IGG 1.18

When my finger has broken out, I don’t have an outbreak down there. Actually, I don’t think I’ve had one at all. Soon as I got off the medicine the breakout came back and it still took awhile to go away. So I question if it is whitlow, my doctor thinks its fungal. This happened twice.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by Bnelly2020.

[Terri Warren]

You have tested positive on the HSV 2 antibody test, but within the false positive range. The CDC says you need a confirmatory test and western blot is the best. I can’t say if what’s on your finger is HSV 1 but herpetic whitlow looks like significant water blisters on a very red base, they break open, are very tender and takes usually 1-3 weeks to resolve after scabbing. Does this sound like what’s going on with your finger?

Terri

[Bnelly2020]

Hi Dr. Warren,

So two months later and after my doctor has delayed referring me and told me I was crazy and everything isn’t herpes. I was referred to a dermatologist, and I saw them on the 31st of December. She took one look and said it was whitlow (it looks like it). I am a black woman with dark skin, its little blisters and they open and turn white. I knew it was whitlow. My primary doctor has had me taking 3 grams of valtrex a day and I am concerned if that’s too much. I don’t want to become immune. The dermatologist told me she will have me on one gram a day. That’s it, nothing else, no advice on how to care for it in the meantime or anything.

In these two months it has spread and the outbreaks just look really bad. I am thankful that I kept it covered even though my doctor told me to leave it open. Terri, what can I do in the meantime? I know if whitlow is left untreated it can have bad results in regards to the brain.

Should I get a new doctor. I just find that many can’t treat me and won’t listen to me here.

[Terri Warren]

Whoa. How long have the lesions been present, altogether now? Herpes wouldn’t last months. So no swab testing was done of the lesions? What do you mean it has spread? Is the treatment not making the lesions gram a day should be plenty.
You are treating your herpes, if indeed that’s what it is and I’m not sure at all about that, and there will be no damage to your brain from herpes whitlow.

Terri

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