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unprotected oral and protected intercourse with a girl who claimed she’s clean. For 3 weeks after I had a bit of pain in my left thigh and pain in the tip of the penis. Almost 4 weeks after this encounter several painless white blisters popped up on the penis head and shaft, could see the black scab within. A few days later I had itchy “mosquito bite” looking things on my thighs and a day later a strange rash right flank. They went away and the thigh pain still persists one month later. Wasn’t able to get them swabbed but I went to a clinic to do blood work at 7 weeks post encounter. I tested “positive” on what I believe was a Elisa non specific ig test. But the same blood sample was indeterminate for type, come back in 2 months they said. This is a bit fishy to me because this test costs the clinic money, I think they may be cutting corners. My questions:
1) are there any differential diagnoses for such symptoms
2) is there such thing as an igg non specific test and could it be positive after 7 weeks but indeterminate for type?
3) how solid is this “positive” result I’ve receivedThe clinic seems very poorly informed. I didn’t receive and numerical values or anything
Thanks -
First a non-type specific antibody test for HSV is basically useless. If positive, it could be that you have either HSV 1 or HSV 2 or even a false positive. That test just isn’t very good at all. I would be tempted to ask for my money back
1) are there any differential diagnoses for such symptoms
The symptoms that you describe as painless blisters came up too late to be a new case of herpes (the usual time from infection to symptoms is 5.5 days after exposure and infection). I’m not sure what those might have been. And the thigh pain could be a muscle pull – so difficult to say.
2) is there such thing as an igg non specific test and could it be positive after 7 weeks but indeterminate for type?
Yes, there is a non-type specific test and it sounds like you had that done, unfortunately. What you need is a type specific IgG HSV 1 and 2 antibody test.
3) how solid is this “positive” result I’ve received
See above. Not solid at all. I wouldn’t do anything based on that test. Wait 12 weeks from the contact that you had and then, if you want to test, and you probably should, test again using the correct test.
Terri
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Post herpetic neuralgia does happen with some herpes patients I believe. Normally, it is short and in my experience, happens more often prior to an outbreak than after an outbreak. Probably in the traditional definition, as it applies to shingles, herpes infected people don’t get it. They are quite different things – the nerve pain prior to or after a herpes outbreak – than people who have PHN from shingles. I doubt that left leg pain for 2.5 months has anything to do with herpes, even if you do have herpes. I’m still confused about your testing – you had an equivocal at 7.5 weeks post exposure, is that correct? You probably need to retest at 12 weeks with a type specific antibody test.
You can shed virus from your body with no symptoms. An outbreak means symptoms.
Terri
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oh my goodness, you are getting all SORTS of erroneous information today!
I’m sorry, we don’t do pictures.
You can order yourself a type specific IgG antibody test on maybe websites without a clinician order. I most often recommend healthcheckusa.com
Type totally matters. HSV 2 is almost always genital and is far more frequently transmitted than HSV 1 genitally. What you want to know about is HSV 2. Period. More than half the population has HSV 1 and even if you have it genitally and don’t know it, it is quite benign for most people in that location. I think in this situation you want to know about HSV 2. Do not order IgM, only IgGTerri
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I’m sorry, you are out of questions at this point. If you wish to talk more, you’ll need to renew.
Terri
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Yes, we can handle that for you. You just need to call the clinic and set up a phone consultation.
Terri
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I cannot tell you if the skin conditions that you describe are due to HSV 1. In order to sort that out, you should have a clinician doing PCR swabs of these skin lesions when the arise for HSV. Have you done that? That is going to give you the best answer to your question and there is just no other way to sort this out.
Sorry, I really don’t look at picture because that is way too close to practicing medicine over the internet which I cannot do.
Terri
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1. I have never seen someone have these symptoms every single day with a herpes diagnosis, no. I see in your history that you had a Western blot that was negative for HSV-2 and positive for HSV one. HSV one genital infection, if we assume you might have that, rarely reoccurs and would not be causing symptoms every day.
2. There are certainly Swab tests that can be done on a daily basis if your clinician would order that called PCR swabs. However, they usually cost more than $100 for each swab test. With a negative Western blot for HSV-2, I think this would be a huge waste of money myself but your call.Terri
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We believe that HSV 1 sheds virus from the genital tract on about 5 days out of 100.
It is extremely unlikely that someone with oral HSV 1 to develop a NEW genital HSV 1 infection.Terri
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