1. I am 20 weeks pregnant with my 4th child. I think I should I take intrauterine herpes off my worry list, but I once had a D&C and was having an outbreak due to stress. Could I have infected my uterus during the procedure?
That’s not how that works. No, you should not worry about your uterus being infection. the virus lives in the nerves that innervate that entire area but not any organ specifically
2. I get SO anxious about giving birth. I have already expressed concerns to my OB and will continue to. But you are an hsv expert. What are the risks with a long standing hsv infection while taking suppressive therapy if there are no sores but viral shedding at time of delivery? Does csection completely eliminate risk or is there still a small chance of transmission?
Women who have well established HSV, like you, have less than a 1% risk of transmitting to a newborn at birth. C-section would certainly eliminate the vast majority if that already small risk. you will also be on suppression during the last 4-6 weeks, at higher doses than normally. But I think, given your fear, you should discuss an optional C-section. You seem very worried and that’s not good.
3. There is no indirect transmission scenario possible where I can infect my children with hsv2 correct?
Absolutely not
4. I also get paranoid about autoinoculation, esp whitlow. I get uneasy touching dirty towels, I worry about drying myself off or cleaning myself and then touching where my genitals rubbed against and getting whitlow. Not possible, even with cracks in the skin?
Correct.
5. Does whitlow ever present in an atypical way? I guess I want to know if it would be obvious. I just worry about infecting our kids.
Whitlow by definition is obvious, so no, not in an atypical way that I’ve ever seen or heard about.
6. I recently got covid. I had a low grade fever, nasal congestion, then a sore throat with some ear pain. I noticed a few tiny white dots and white patches in the back of my throat. The office I called said people have reported this with covid infection, they weren’t concerned. I have never had an oral outbreak of hsv2, what are the chances it’s been dormant all these years and manifested this way for the first time ever? Also, when I got my positive covid result I started taking 1g valtrex a day prophylactically to be safe and this appeared day 3.
I would say almost certainly the spots were due to COVID in what you describe here.
7. With a genital infection, can sores appear anywhere besides the boxer shorts area? Do herpes ever appear atypical on thicker skin?
Well, people can appear on thicker skin like the buttocks, but that is in the boxer shorts area. Genital herpes stays in the nerve group that supplies that area.
8. Getting a disseminated infection should NOT be a concern of mine, right?
Correct
Terri