Reply To: Did I just get HSV2 on the mouth?

[Zoros_LekLek]

I think he did a swab, actually, not a biopsy — the scalpel was to scrape off a little bit of the crusted skin so as to get access to the underlying sore. I don’t know if that was a good idea or not, but as you say, it’s water under the bridge.

So yeah, I still don’t quite understand the train of events. I had sexual contact on Tuesday night (around midnight). I did the HSV testing on Monday around noon — so six days later. Is that time long enough for me to get *that* many antibodies? 7.86 seems through the roof, which is why, I take it, you’re wondering whether it’s actually not a new infection. What do you think?

Two more things. One, is that what led me to the clinic was precisely how abnormal all this felt (up to, and including, getting the cold sore). Flu symptoms (fever, chills), a cold sore running up to my lip, the proximity of a sexual encounter with the symptoms… this all seemed suspicious and not normal. I actually don’t remember *ever* getting a cold sore, liquid fluid and all, on my lip, though I’ve had plenty of pimples and similar bumps near or around my mouth, one of which I guess might have been a cold sore. I don’t know. But if this is an old infection, then all this is just so much coincidence — including the flu-ish symptoms and the proximity of making out with this girl and getting a cold sore. Is that correct?

Second: I contacted the girl. She was tested for all STIS and STDs on January 6th, and was negative for everything, including HSV2. She has had only protected sex since then, except for one encounter with an ex-boyfriend whom she knows is clean. She does not think she has HSV2 at all — or HSV1, for that matter. She says her sister and best friend would get cold sores regularly, since childhood, whenever they were sick, but that she’s never had cold sores herself. This strikes me as a potentially ambiguous thought: if she’s had family members getting sick around her, chances are she’s been exposed to HSV1 before. But if she’s never had a cold sore, and didn’t have one the night we met up, then I don’t see how she could have given me HSV1.

So — what do you think? Have I had HSV1 for a while, without realizing it, making this whole concatenation of events (sex-fever-swollen tonsils-cold sore) more or less arbitrary? Did I acquire it from this girl, maybe through asymptomatic shedding or something?

Finally: if I already have HSV1, then aren’t the chances of me getting HSV2 on the lip actually quite low? As I understand these things, HSV2 doesn’t really like the lip anyway, and if I have HSV1 (or have had it for a while) then I have some resistance to it already. Or is it really possible to get HSV1 *and* HSV2 on the same location? (I doubt that I have HSV1 anywhere other than the mouth area).