Reply To: Concerned to Know my Status

[ConcernedToKnowMyStatus]

Hi Terri,

Adding some follow-up info and questions.

My second antibody test came back negative for both IgG and IgM for both strains.

3 – I’m wondering how good the IgG result is as evidence that I don’t have an old infection (i.e. older than my most recent June 17th & 19th encounters, which were my first encounters since roughly a year prior). (I’m assuming given what I’ve read that the IgM result isn’t very good evidence of anything. Is that right?) I’m wondering this especially in light of your handbook’s claim that “the other problem with the IgG test is that it misses about 30% of HSV-1 infections.”

4 – Relatedly, I am wondering if it’s understood why the IgG test suffers this HSV-1-sensitivity problem when it comes to HSV-1 infections. Is it a problem purely on the side of the test, such that it might make sense for me to have another IgG test performed in the hopes of adding further evidential support on top of this most recent result? Or do the cases where the test fails to detect the HSV-1 tend to be cases where the individual’s HSV-1 (or immune system, or whatever) happens to be behaving differently in a way that makes it harder to detect the infection? If that were true, I imagine running another IgG test wouldn’t supply much by way of additional evidence.

5 – Relatedly, is this HSV-1-sensitivity problem on the part of the IgG test something that improves over time, such that I might regard my test as being at all more trust-worthy given that it’s been roughly a year since the encounter I’m concerned to rule out as a point of infection?

More miscellaneous information: My first message neglected to mention that the recent three encounters were condom-protected; not that this would seem to matter greatly, given that the red marks I encountered were in non-condom-protected areas.

Thank you again Terri. Best.