Hi there,
I'm so grateful I found this forum, it's been helping me out so much. I'm hoping I can get some insight/ solidarity by making my own post.
I'm a 21 year old person (assigned female at birth) and I believe I'm currently having my first genital herpes outbreak. I've been in a relationship for over a year with someone who has genital herpes.
The symptoms I've been experiencing for the past nearly 2 weeks have been absolutely horrible. On top of that, I haven't been able to get a positive diagnosis for herpes, and the provider I've been seeing at planned parenthood seems to be confused by my symptoms which is a bit stressful.
My outbreak started when I noticed a paper cut-like lesion at the top of my vulva between my labia majora. I didn't see any kind of blister, I just felt a burning/ stinging sensation in that area when I wiped and then noticed the little cut. In the next days after that, my symptoms continued to evolve. I got a mild fever, intense headache, general fatigue, and chills. I also felt some nerve pain sensations and soreness in my legs and arms. I had a lot of discharge that was watery and clear and had a fishy odor. A couple days after my first lesion appeared, my entire vulva, anus, and butt crack started to itch soooooo badly. Like the worst itch I have ever experienced. I have barely been able to sleep since my outbreak started, I usually just writhe in discomfort all night from the discomfort. I didn't develop any other noticeable sores, but the entire rim on both sides of my labia majora seem to be covered in tiny lesions that leak yellow discharge and become crusted over. The skin around my anus and butt crack is cracked, dry, and peeling. It's so irritated that is bleeds a little when I poo :(. On one of the days, my whole vulva was bright red and swollen to almost twice its size. I feel like every day has brought more strange symptoms that seem to come and go. But overall, the itchiness, burning, and discharge have been consistent .
Throughout this whole time, I've been going to planned parenthood for care as I don't have insurance. I got my first lesion swabbed which came back negative, but that's not surprising given that it was over 48 hours old. The doctor was hesitant to say my symptoms seemed like herpes because I don't have any stereotypical looking herpes "sores". Luckily she still gave me acyclovir because I told her my partner has herpes. She did a wet mount on me and it came back negative for BV and yeast, but she gave me a pill for yeast just in case. She also said that she found a lot of white blood cells in my pee. I honestly don't feel like the acyclovir has been helping but I'm taking it every day. After my first visit, I waited a few days and then made another appointment because my symptoms were getting worse and I wanted to try to get some more help for the unbearable itching and inflammation. The doctor one again seemed doubtful that my symptoms could be herpes. She also did another wet mount and this time she found that I had BV, (pretty mild, and I wasn't surprised because I was on my period at the time and that happens to me sometimes), so now I'm on antibiotics too. That was two days ago. She asked me to come back in for another appointment today because she was concerned that my original lesion still wasn't healing after 5 days on Acyclovir. Today during my appointment, she told me that my symptoms "didn't look like any herpes case" she'd ever seen before. I keep pressing her for details on why she thinks this, but it seems like it's mostly just because I don't have typical herpes "sores". She really wanted to do a biopsy on me and prescribed me steroid cream which I haven't gotten yet. I said no to the biopsy for now because i don't have the money and I'm already in so much discomfort. I'll probably go back for it in a couple weeks when I have the money though.
Anyways, thank you so much for taking the time to read this and please let me know if any of these symptoms sound familiar to you, or like something else I should be looking out for. My fear is that I actually don't have herpes and I'm not properly treating whatever is going on. I got tested for all other STIs (chlamydia, gonnorhea, HIV, hep C, syphillis), and they all came back negative. I haven't slept with anyone new in the past year either. I really don't see what this could be besides herpes, but the lack of knowing is making it more stressful. I've also learned from reading forums that doctors tend to have a pretty narrow and simplified view of what qualifies as herpes symptoms. But the fact that a planned parenthood doctor who must see a lot of herpes outbreaks says it doesn't look like one is kinda freaking me out.
I hope you're well and please let me know your thoughts ❤️
Lula