March 20, 2015 at 5:03 am #5680

Spectator

Hello Nurse Warren,

I know it has been a long time since my last post, but I hope I can still ask another question? If not, I would be happy to pay again. My previous questions about WB accuracy were because I have a past with HSV 2 exposure:

I’ll be as brief as possible. I am a caucasian male who had condom protected intercourse 2 or 3 times with an ex girlfriend while we dated over a 7 month span. We engaged in mutual oral sex, probably twice a week. She has HSV 2 genital. I have oral HSV 1. A year after the relationship ended I had both a herpeselect and a Western Blot. Both were negative for HSV 2 and of course positive for HSV 1. I have watched my genitals now for a few years and have had a few cases of folliculitis (always in the pubic hair area) which I had checked out by my Doctor (and swabbed for assurance) and have always been given the all clear. No sexual contact of any kind since.

I try to temper my worries that everything I see is possibly herpes, but there’s recent event I’d like your view on. I noticed a red bump sort of where my scrotum meets my shaft near the inside of my thigh. It was in an area that did indeed have pubic hair, but not dense amounts, and it was in a spot where my boxers sometimes rub… It was tender and felt just like a pimple or boil feels deep in the skin. I barely squeezed and it ‘popped’ readily. I figured if I saw white pimple-puss (sorry for lack of better terminology) I knew it would be just a boil or inflamed hair follicle. Well all I noticed was mostly blood, maybe some faint white stuff, maybe not… Simultaneously, about a thumbnails distance from the bump was a well defined swollen mass bigger than a marble deep in my skin. Again, I thought it was a boil. The skin wasnt really red or anything, but it ‘felt’ like a very deep, swollen pimple that needed to be popped or drained. I thought maybe it was a furuncle, and the popped bump was a branch from it? Anyway, the first bump healed quickly, in a couple days, and seemed to have originated from a hair follicle, despite there being no hair there, but I cant be sure. The mass much deeper in, and never came to head, but always felt like a deep pimple, and over about ten days it slowly got smaller and smaller and now has healed.
I did not go to the doctor over it, because I had some confidence it was just some typical staph or bacteria related hair follicle issue. But since the boil never came to a head, and I never definitely saw any white stuff, I find myself thinking about it. Was the mass actually a single very swollen lymphnode and the bump an abnormal herpes blister? What are some distinguishing features between hair follicle issues and herpes? My understanding is that herpes blisters are usually like water blisters and they dont really feel like bumps that are under pressure to be popped, but more superficial like a burn blister?

Also, one thing out of curiosity… I got a lot of info from the medhelp.org site and your forum there… that was a great site! Why is it no longer taking questions??

Much love and appreciation for all you do, Terri!