› Forums › Herpes Questions › new HSV I infection › Reply To: new HSV I infection
Sorry.I posted my response below as a new topic (new HSV I infection part 2) not knowing how to continue on this thread. I just figured it out and am reposting so my response has continuity.
Thank you for your response Terri. However, I am confused by some of it.
First, you say “I don’t think you need to stop Valtrex and get another IgG antibody test. Why would you?” Then you say “The test isn’t great for HSV 1 to start with and the antiviral therapy can keep antibody development at bay for months, maybe years! Having HSV 1 infection that is well established (read that as four months without antiviral therapy) will keep you from getting it at a new location on your body.” I don’t want to get it on another part of my body, which as you say, I can if I haven’t developed antibodies. In order to develop those antibodies, you say I have to be four months without antiviral therapy. That is primarily why I want to get off the Valtrex, so that I can develop the antibodies and be resistant to getting an infection orofacially. Being on Valtrex doesn’t offer immunity to getting it in another location if I haven’t yet developed antibodies right?
Secondly, your saying the IgG test isn’t great for HSV 1 antibody detection confuses me. When you say “The test isn’t great for HSV 1 to start with” are you saying it isn’t as accurate for HSV 1 as it is for HSV 2? If so, how does my lover know that his test is accurately positive? Because his value is so high? Because I had a primary infection without antibodies? That is the second reason I want to get off Valtrex, to measure the fact that I have antibodies and am afforded protection by them.
Finally, I don’t want to take any more medication than I have to, so I thought I would just take it with this lover if I had another outbreak. I understand that if I have a seronegative lover in the future that I might consider going back on it.
Related to all of this, I don’t understand how the virus is prohibited from reinfecting an already infected individual in a different location on their body because they have antibodies circulating in their blood, yet the virus can repeatedly come out of dormancy and manifest itself as visible sores and/or if not that, shed invisibly. My understanding is that the only reason the virus isn’t eradicated from your body is because it takes up residence in the nerve ganglion corresponding to the original infection location. But doesn’t it have to come out of dormancy to manifest a sore or shed? And if so, once the virus leaves the ganglion and begins traveling down the nerve pathway to daylight at skin eruption or invisible shedding, isn’t it no longer protected from the antibodies and wouldn’t it be exposed to the antibodies and killed before day lighting on the skin surface? Or does the entire nerve pathway offer protection from antibodies and a potentially new infection hasn’t yet entered the nerve pathway and is therefore, somehow stopped in its tracks and killed by circulating antibodies? In other words, a primary infection occurs outside of the nerves and nerve pathway, where it can be killed by antibodies, but, after a time, enters the nerve pathway and from then on it is protected from being eradicated by antibodies whether it is dormant in the nerve ganglion or not.