Reply To: Can shingles affect HSV tests?

[Joyful_Blues]

Thanks for answering my questions.

3) Is bloodwork or actual antibody formation being affected by my being on antivirals since BEFORE exposure and outbreak? YES!

Is my actual antibody formation being affected by being on valacyclovir since before the exposure and outbreak? Does this matter in any way, like being infected in my mouth because I don’t have sufficient antibodies against someone with HSV1 kissing me?

NEW QUESTIONS:

1) The PCR swab test was conducted by a OBGYN Nurse Practitioner who had given me bad information about a condition I had prior to the HSV outbreak. After the swab test came back positive, the Nurse Practitioner said:

“You’re positive for HSV1. This is great news! This means you’ll never have another outbreak and will never test positive for herpes again! It will be like you never had it.” (Seriously. I wrote it down and read it back to her, and she said I got it right.)

I went over this and over this with her on the phone to be 100% certain of what she was saying–because it didn’t seem right after the reading I’d done on the CDC site and your site.

She’s incorrect about this, yes? While I *might* never have another outbreak, I *do* have HSV1 in the genitals and can infect others when the virus is shedding. Which means I need to guard against it every time there’s any sexual contact, yes?

2) Finally–the swab test came back “Positive.” Should there have been a number metric? The lab won’t talk directly to me, the Nurse Practitioner won’t request them to provided any detail, and my general practitioner didn’t get good answers.

I guess I’m hoping the swab test wasn’t a false positive because of the shingles and valacyclovir days before the exposure and outbreak. Do you have any idea how likely a false positive is on the swab test?

I really appreciate your providing this forum to ask questions my doctors can’t answer.