Hi there,
I'm here because I made it to the age of 43 never having anything more than genital warts (around 18 years ago) which was passed on to me by my long time partner of 7 years. I had NO idea he was sleeping around. That was fine and I had those removed and haven't had anything since. Anyway here I am at 43, what I thought was supposed to be the prime of my life, with herpes - my first outbreak. I feel absolutely devastated. I feel too old for this sh@#, but I guess herpes does not age discriminate.
Everything in my life has been going so well up until this happened. I just moved to a new city to be with my longtime partner, who I have been dating long distance for around three years. We are monogamous and neither of us has been with anyone else since we started seeing each other. We've been living together since last July, and no problems. Then I find I've got something that looks like a pimple on my vagina, but hurts like the dickens but the dickens on steroids. So I keep the area clean and I think it's going to go away, but it doesn't. The symptoms get worse. I had a runny nose like a head cold and then I started to feel absolutely horrible, flu-like, horrible, and then all hell broke loose in my nether region. That's when I knew, I knew what it was, and went to the doctor. The doctor looked at it for maybe 30 seconds and said "yes you have herpes."
I just took my last anti-viral today, and am happy to say I'm clear. I'm really trying hard not to worry about it popping up again, because the pain was unbearable. I had no idea how badly it would hurt.
I went through every emotion you can possibly imagine (if you're reading this then you likely have herpes and know) and am still coming to terms with the fact that I'm going to have to live with this for the rest of my life. I spent hours crying and soul searching and essentially feeling sorry for myself. This is not the sort of thing you can just tell anyone about. All those emotions mixed in with the physical pain and still having to get up and go to work every morning like everything was normal.
My partner has been very supportive, but neither of us know where it came from. He has never had an outbreak and doesn't think he has it. He went to the doctor to get tested and the doctor told him there are no "accurate/reliable" blood tests for herpes, so he's not going to be tested for it. I'm not sure I understand that in this day and age there aren't any blood tests for this that can say with accuracy whether or not a person has it.
We were talking about it today and how my doctor had suggested I go back in six weeks for an HIV test. He said his doctor had ordered him to get an HIV test too. I wondered why they would link HIV with herpes, and my partner pipes up and mentioned something about promiscuity (after he said it he took the word back saying he'd used it in error). Well I got a bit annoyed, because I'm not promiscuous and I don't want anyone thinking I am or judging me just because I caught this thing. I am judging myself enough already... I need to get over the self punishment.
I am worried about sex now. I want to enjoy sex with my partner, not always be worried about if it's going to cause something. I used to just let go and have fun, but I'm afraid to now because I don't want to damage myself for fear of it coming back. This is really upsetting to me because I've found this guy that I'm totally compatible with sexually and was having the best sex of my life before this happened. I don't want that to change. Can I return to a normal sex life?
Thank you for having this group. I find it cathartic to get these feelings and worries out.