very_obvious_throwaway

Thanks again, I'm trying to remain optimistic. I woke up today with new lesions in a new location. This is my 4th outbreak in just over a month. 3 have been back to back with no real break in between and I have spent almost the entirety of the last month in pretty bad pain. I just feel very discouraged. There is no point to this message lol. I guess I'm just putting it out there in case someone reading is in a similar situation to feel less alone.

Did they tell you why it's "100% not whitlow" ? Sometimes if I get the doc to walk me through their reasoning it's more easy to digest than just taking it on faith because some person with a stethoscope said so. Chances are it is actually not whitlow. From my understanding it is exceedingly rare and if you had HSV for 20 years you would likely have strong natural immunities to auto-inoculation. being sore for multiple weeks also doesn't really seem to match a herpes outbreak either. What has your doctor said else it could be other than whitlow? A doctor at Urgent Care may not be the best for this, whitlow isn't exactly "urgent" and those doctors kind of dismiss anything that isn't life threatening. Good luck!

Thanks @J1010 and @mr_hopp for taking the time to reply. I really appreciate both of your answers. So my understanding now is that it is not actually a new infection, but just he same infection expressing itself at a new location along the same nerve pathways. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse lol, but at least I don't feel like everything I read and learned about this disease is incorrect I guess. I am still feeling quite down though. I have already had another new outbreak since making my first post. This is the 2nd this month with only about a week in between of feeling "normal." I feel like I have lost hope in the idea that herpes will be managed better with time. I'm now more than 2 years in and still having at least an outbreak a month on average and haven't noticed really any decrease or predictability in the outbreaks. It has really ruined my sex life with my partner, they are very understanding, but somewhat avoidant of the topic. They don't really initiate anymore because they know odds are I will be having an outbreak, or waiting to heal from my last one. We haven't really found it possible to maintain a fun spontaneous sex life when odds are there is usually just a week or two in a month where it's "safe" to have sex. I have tried daily antivirals but I found they don't really reduce the outbreaks that significantly enough to re-establish a normal sexual relationship, and the thought of beating up my liver everyday for the rest of my life feels not worth it to me. I thought I would become more optimistic and learn to live with this as time went on but I think I feel the opposite now. I don't know. I'm just rambling now but it feels quite hopeless. All of these things that I have learned and been hoping for are just turning out to be false. That it gets more infrequent and less severe with time, that antiretrovirals can suppress OBs, that you don't have to worry about it appearing in new locations... that you can still have a fulfilling sex life. That might be true on average but it seems like for whatever reason I seem to be an exception.

A few more specific related questions I have: 1. Is it possible that this is only a "surface level" infection at this new site passed by the virus directly to the skin? Or does the appearance of blisters mean that the virus is already established in the nerves and I can expect that this is a new site that will have recurrent outbreaks for the rest of my life? 2. Sometimes I will have an outbreak and 4 or 5 days into it when the initial blisters are already scabbing over and healing, new blisters will start to form close by and appear which will then take another 4 or 5 days before they scab and start to heal. Is this the "same" outbreak? Or is this somehow a new patch of skin being infected by the virus particles released from the initial blisters. Thanks for your help.

I was diagnosed with HSV2 about 2.5 years ago. Since then I have had regular genital outbreaks - once every month or two. Everything I have read has said that the outbreaks will likely be less severe and less frequent with time but I have not found this to be the case. A few months ago I had an outbreak that lasted a month that was even more painful than my initial infection. A few days ago I entered a new level of hell. I began having another genital outbreak and I realized I'm also having an outbreak on my butt cheek right on the sit-bones. It is extremely painful and swollen and sitting down for any length of time is agony and I have to sit for 8 hours at a time for my job. My understanding was that once you are infected your body builds up immunities so that it is not possible to spread to a new location after the initial infection. I have never had an outbreak at this location so it is definitely new, so what is going on? Here is my source for that assumption: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/herpes-hsv1-and-hsv2/genital-herpes Is this incorrect that you can't transmit the infection to other parts of your body? I feel like I am losing control of my body and this is really making life hard for me. Everyone has told me that this disease gets easier to manage with time but in my experience it's only getting harder and more unpredictable. I'm starting to feel again that having an infection makes me a dangerous even to myself. If it is possible to spread despite me being very careful, where will it spread next? My face? My eyes? Has this happened to anyone else? Can anyone help me understand how this happened?