› Forums › Herpes Questions › Swab, IgG, Confusing diagnosis › Reply To: Swab, IgG, Confusing diagnosis
Hi Terri, and thank you for answering my questions!
Here’s why I thought it was acting like a new infection: I arrived home from diving on Dec 28th. I spent the next week feeling tired, achy, headachcy, swollen glands, feverish, and just yucky. (In my first post I just said under the weather) and then the sore hit the roof of my mouth. Also I didn’t take pictures of the sore but I found a source that very clearly differentiated between canker sores and Herpes sores. I have posted a photo from that site that looks like my sore looked.
I understand intra-oral herpes sores are usually on the hard, bone-attached areas like the roof of the mouth and the gum line, whereas canker sores are round and usually on the soft moveable parts of the mouth like inside of cheek, lip, and soft palate.
Do you agree with the above description? (regarding the appearance of canker vs. herpes sores inside the mouth)
After the first sore healed I would get a tiny blister/bump (didn’t hurt, and I was on val-acyclovir) that would appear, swell, then pop open, then proceed to heal. That happened 3 times while I was on Val-acyclovir. And I thought that’s what Herpes blisters do in many cases.
You said The IgM is useless and should be ignored. But you also said It could be HSV 1 yes, but then the swab test would have been positive and it wasn’t.
I thought the Swab test IS the IgM test. Is it?
And I’m not sure what Equivocal means as my results were 1.06 which is higher than a negative score but lower than a positive score.
What does an Equivocal score mean?
Should I just not pay attention to the swab IgM test at all? or should I take those results as being negative?
(I ask because the first doc said it was negative but the second doc that did the blood test said that the IgM test indicates a recent outbreak in addition to the IgG test saying I’ve had H2 for a long time.)
Is 4.57 a common score for people who have had HsV2 for along time?
How can the IgG test come back negative for HsV1 when I know I’ve had H1 since childhood?
I also read in some of your other q and a’s on this forum that you have seen a false positive IgG as high as 4.5
Does that happen often?
I plan to get re-tested in about a month as I am finally getting a primary care doc.
Thank you again for taking the time to answer, and thank for all the good work you and your clinic do!
cheers!