So I would bet probably $500 that your HSV 2 result is a false positive result. At the level of both of these results, the odds are greater than 75% that it is a false positive. You have a wise physician. Except that having a sore on your lip at the time of the draw really isn’t the issue. The issue is that there is a slight crossover effect, for some people, at these low positive ranges, for people in particular who have HSV 1 infection already. The odds are definitely on your side here. Having said that, you may or may not be happy with those statistics. I have certainly seen people be both really negative (by western blot), really positive (by western blot) and I have seen people in this situation having an indeterminate western blot.
So how do you decide what to do? I can tell you that if this was MY IgG result, I would definitely do the western blot. So either it’s a false positive and you are incredibly relieved or it is a true positive which would be a bummer, but eventually, you would come to terms with this and live your live, or, in my mind the most troubling, an indeterminate western blot. This means that they cannot tell you for certain if you are positive or negative. This would be the hardest for me. But in people with low positive results on their ELISA, still, the majority of people have a clear positive or negative.
So in summary, I would advise the western blot. We order this test for all low positive patients and no one has ever paid that much. I think the patients for whom we order this test pay about $170. Also, do you have insurance? They should pay at least part of it, no?
Terri