1. Has there been a large influx of people who test negative on the blot but are in fact positive? I read about a guy who had visible outbreaks monthly for two years who tested negative on the blot through you without taking antivirals, but was negative on the blot. 5 different Dr’s said his case was hsv 100% but the blot said negative. He then tested positive via pcr swab and was not sexually active since attempting to be properly diagmosed.
2. I just read here a female with known cold sores and a 31 igg ask about her negative western blot for both Hsv1 and hsv2. What is causing all these testing issues for the blot? These are just two examples out of about 6-7 cases I found in the past few months regarding conflicting results when compared to the blot.
I can’t answer anything about these or other cases without a whole lot more background. We do know the western blot for HSV 1 misses about 5% of cases.
3. How do I go about daily pcr swab testing without active sores? I think pcr swabs may be the only accurate test there is for hsv. How do I ask my Dr to do this when each Dr says it’s not helpful without sores. They refuse to order one pcr let alone daily swabs.
You can order your own swabs and do daily home swabbing if you wish. There is a website, 24-7 labs, that will send you swabs for you to gather at home if you wish to pursue this.
4. My 3rd blot now at 18 months is running at U of W, but after reading of others false negatives, I don’t think I am going to be able to fully trust these results either. I don’t know how to ever feel confident I won’t expose my partner to what I may have. I want to have sex so bad but not at the expense of having given a loved one an incurable disease. If this blot is negative yet my symptoms are still persisting, what would you do next?
In your situation, I would recommend that you get any symptoms swab tested because that will tell you how accurate your perceptions are that these symptoms are herpes. Or have you already had symptoms swab tested and they are negative?
You can do daily home swabbing if you can afford it, sure.
Terri