joey_p

The system is definitely broken and has been for a while. The doc ended up doing a culture test. They never heard of a PCR herpes test, even though this is what they do for a living - perform STD tests. Very strange to me. Where would one normally get a PCR test? Order it online and collect yourself? I'm just curious at this point.

Thank you for the info. I called a couple of places and they never heard of a PCR test, they just do culture test and they say it takes about a week to get results. It's frustrating because i live in one of the largest cities in the states and nobody knows anything.

Thank you for your response and words of encouragement. It is indeed a very depressing feeling not knowing what you have. And if it is HSV, it would be a hard thing for me to accept, mostly due to the stigma attached to it and what we've been "taught" our entire lives. I know its not the end of the world, I just don't think many people are very accepting, unfortunately. As for the PCR test, does it produce results within minutes or is it something they have to send it out to the lab for? Should I ask specifically if the test is PCR? Thank you!

So you're thinking this isn't herpes then?

My symptoms started on 7/7 with slight sore throat and towards the end of the day tiny rash spots around my groin (male). Didn't think anything of it due to weather being hot and sweaty. Next morning, sore throat a lot worse, some swollen lymphs, the rash spots turned into small pustules of sorts. They were individual spots however, not clustered. Unfortunately all STI clinics are closed weekends around here so waited til Monday. Monday, went in to my primary care, he orders labs for HSV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, HIV, syphilis, and.. monkey pox. Ok. The lab doesn't perform monkey pox test, had to go down to county. At this point I'm running like 102.3 fever, throat hurts, feel like crap. County says, yeah, looks like monkey pox, they did the test by swabbing the sores. At this time I have lesions inside my throat, on my throat glands, one inside the lip, couple blister things on the outside of the lip, chin, then on stomach and around my genitals. Some are scabbing up a bit since they got popped, during the night I presume while sleeping. Tuesday, the tests come back, except for the mpox, everything is negative. So I go to another clinic on Wednesday, this is an LGBT clinic where I get tested sometimes because its faster and cheaper than my doc (I'm straight however). The guy there is convinced I have mpox as well. I'm like wow ok. He does another swab for mpox just in case and says he can get the results quicker than the county offices. Then says I need antiviral for monkeypox as it will make it go away faster and I'll feel better. The medicine is super hard to get as only the govt has it. He made calls and the next day, Thursday, I received the meds. I'm happy thinking the mpox will start withering away now and I'll get good. Well, in the meantime, the blisters/pustules or whatever are now developing in clusters around the older ones. Which is starting to look less like monkey pox. While doing all this research I'm thinking this is probably herpes, BUT I feel no pain at all, no itching or anything, which from my understanding there's a lot of both going on, especially during the first outbreak. ALSO, I have clusters in the back of my head that are also all pus-like and clustery. Which makes me thing is this really herpes. I have to wait until this coming Monday to actually go get the PCR test done on the pustules, since apparently blood test may not be very accurate. Here are some images. Let me know what you folks think. And I appreciate any feedback.