Reply To: Slight concern

[JC202390]

Hey Terri thank you for your response.. based on what you’ve told me I’m quite confident that I was just worried and this was all in my head.. this is an excerpt from dr hands field on the Medhelp website that I was reading, this particular person had a similar concern like me and had a brief unprotected exposure.. I’m just wondering if you could also confirm what dr handsfield said here as from what I’ve seen you and him seem to the 2 most knowledgeable professionals I’ve seen online regarding herpes..

I understand your discomfort and concern on learning your partner has HSV-2. However, the odds are strongly in your favor: it is very unlike you were infected, and your symptoms don’t suggest herpes. I say this with confidence, for two main reasons.

First, the average transmission risk for genital HSV-2, when one partner is known to be infected, is under 1 in 1,000 for each epsiode of unprotected sex. Your risk probably is lower than that, since the unprotected exposure, after condom breakage, was brief. (In monogamous couples in which one person has HSV-2 and the other does not, who take no precautions against transmission, on average the infection is transmitted in only 5% per year, i.e. 1 in 20 couples — and half of all partners never catch burn; in the absence of obvious blisters and sores, a burning sensation is not an initial herpes symptom.

He also stated that most “brief unprotected exposures” do not lead to transmission. Do this leads me to believe that