Fatigue sometimes accompanies a first infection, but the more likely flu symptoms are low grade fever, achiness, headache. These are most often accompanied by genital lesions. Sore throat is only a herpes symptom if you were the giver of oral sex to the woman and contracted herpes in your mouth, which you did not do. While it is true that some women shed more virus around the time of their period, that is not true across all women, no. Sometimes the period is a marker around which people might have symptoms – like they might have symptoms right after their period or mid-cycle in their period. It is not true that all women shed virus more while they are having their period.
The skin of the thighs and groin is thick skin and virus cannot be shed without symptoms from these areas. It is only shed without symptoms from the genitals specifically because the skin is so thin there.
If someone has HSV 1 already and then acquires HSV 2, they are a little less likely to have dramatic symptoms. When you talk about frequent recurrences after new HSV 2 infection, do you mean oral or genital recurrences?
It sounds like you are pretty alone here and this has to be a scary time for you but I am hopeful that things will turn out well for you. You can do the test online if you wish. If your HSV 2 test is positive, remember that you cannot know if this person infected you or you were infected without symptoms by someone else in the past. Condoms reduce the risk of transmission certainly but are not perfect, as you already know.
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Terri