I’m not sure what that test is from week 11. Did you have a lesion that they swab tested? Again, PCR is only to be used for swabbing not blood tests (or at least is SHOULD be only used for swab tests – sometimes clinicians get that mixed up, unfortunately. The fact that your antibody tests have been negative is strongly suggestive that you are indeed not infected. I am a little confused about another thing – you mentioned that you had a mouth sore and a nose cold sore. Do you have a history of having cold sores on your mouth and in your nose? The antibody test misses about one of 10 HSV 1 infections. However, the good news is that if you have had a history of cold sores in your life (and the antibody test failed to pick up the HSV 1), then it is extremely unlikely that you would acquire HSV 1 genitally. And I mean extremely unlikely. So that basically leaves HSV 2. The antibody test is more sensitive for HSV 2 than HSV 1, and if you had new HSV 2, I would expect that by 9 weeks, you would probably have some developing antibody by now. Another question however: did you take more than the 10 days of antiviral therapy? Taking more could influence your antibody development. Please let me know about that.
The symptoms that you describe are very general and are NOT typical of new infection. You list things like fatigue: that can be present for a million reasons. You also list some upper respiratory symptoms, and these are not associated with herpes infections.
I think sometime people forget that when they have a sexual encounter with some one new and different, they get exposed to all sorts of new germs. These germs can cause all sorts of symptoms but when the person is a person outside of the usual sexual experience, all of these symptoms take on a new meaning, and one moves to the conclusion that they must be an STI. In your case, I seriously doubt that you have contracted herpes. However, if you are still worried at 16 weeks, I think having a herpes western blot done would be preferable to the ELISA because it feels like you don’t have complete confidence in the ELISA accuracy, and that is understandable. Our clinic can order that test for you OR you can order a test kit from the University of WAshington and have our regular health care provider draw it and send it back. If this is negative I believe that you can put the herpes worries behind you.
Terri