ASmith

I realize this is not a vaccine / cure, but since this discussion veered into the realm of pritelivir, I just wanted to ask if anyone had any information about recent developments with Amenamevir (ASP2151). It is a helicase primase inhibitor like pritelivir that is apparently in Phase III trials in Japan. See here: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01959295?term=asp2151&rank=4 Here for sciencey stuff: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cpdd.108/abstract Viral shedding in animals: http://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/16/9/7210/pdf Or here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22351940 Not a ton of information that I can find on the all-impt viral shedding issue, but just thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone had any insights.

Yeah I'm with you on all that risk talk, Dancer. Now if only the rest of the world would see it that way... I guess the reason for my post is that I recently saw a dermatologist who told me that, in his opinion, the risk of a healthy, young, asymptomatic male transmitting while on valtrex was incredibly low. Like, so low that I shouldn't even be sweating it. I don't know if he's misinformed or what, but he seemed really confident. I just wanted to hear what people's experiences have been with transmission when they are on valtrex to see if my doctor's advice was anecdotally true.

It's too bad that you can't get any support, but the fact that it's not talked about much might also be a silver lining to the H cloud. The amount of herpes jokes and insults that fly around here definitely contribute to the overall stigma that surrounds having it. Good luck with the local support. And maybe I'll consider moving to London if I get tired of H being the big deal it is here in the U.S.!

Hey Naomi, the perception here is that people are far less concerned about HSV in the UK. Is that not actually the case? Just interested in how the stigma is there compared to the US, where it is quite severe.

Talking about the big, bad G HSV2 here. Have any of you transmitted it to someone else? Were you on valtrex when you did? Asymptomatic vs symptomatic? Had you disclosed beforehand and still passed it on? Just curious. Having talked to people on here and elsewhere who have had discordant relationships, it seems like virtually no one passes it along if they are taking valtrex and avoiding sex during OBs. But maybe that's just because people like to announce good news and not the bad. I've been so anxious about the idea of passing it on to my girlfriend that I hardly even look forward to sex anymore. Just wondering what others' experiences have been with all this. It's still pretty new to me. Any tips on getting past the "transmission anxiety" surrounding sex are appreciated too. This damn virus sure does complicate everything.

Not sure why you're saying I've joined the majority. The prevalence for my age group and race (white males between 25 and 29) is right at 5%. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/10/359/table/T1. Pretending like everyone else has it doesn't make it better. If I try to date women my age, I do that knowing that 95% of the other fish in the sea don't have it. I think the positive thinking on here is great, but let's not kid ourselves. Accepting yourself the way you are does not have to mean pulling on blinders and acting like herpes is some sort of a blessing or like everyone else has it. I also don't think it's fair to say that anyone who would be turned off by it is a bad person. Justified or not, the stigma in this country is huge. And I can't blame someone for not wanting to deal with it. Or, for that matter, I can't blame someone for not wanting to take a chance that they would be one of the unlucky few with really unpleasant symptoms. Who would want to deal with that? Before you got herpes, I doubt you thought that someone else's aversion to it was a character flaw. Honestly, I have found a lot of the advice about dating on here is unhelpful. This website can be a treasure trove of good info, but some stuff I read on here just does not comport with reality. It's one thing to say that you don't have to stop living your life because you got this thing. I'm with that all the way. But it's another to pull the blinders on and say that anyone who actually likes you won't care that you have it or that people who care aren't worth a damn anyway.

I was interested in the question raised by the previous post: are h- girls or guys more likely to be accepting of someone with h? I could see women being more accepting as a group because they might get attached to a guy more quickly? Or is it guys because they care about their health less / just want to get laid / think they're invincible? Any thoughts or anecdotes on this question? Still having a hard time thinking that many attractive and successful women will want to date me once they find out.

Thank you for the response, Dancer. I guess all of my pre-emptive "I know I may sound like a prick" didn't work to stop you from thinking I am one! I really meant no offense, and as I said, I realize that the herp doesn't care about your social class or job or whatever. Also, I was not implying that all black people are "low-class" people. Of course that's a fallacy. But what I said, and this is pretty much irrefutable, is that wealth lines follow racial lines in this country. I was not trying to be judgmental, this is just what I got from websites. For example: "american women in general are nearly twice as likely as men to be infected (21 percent vs. 11 percent). Then add on top of that socioeconomic factors that negatively affect blacks' general state of health, and it's no surprise that black women draw the short straw when it comes to getting genital herpes." From: http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2010/03/nearly_half_of_black_women_have_herpes.html And I also realize that my case, and that of the girl who gave it to me, indicates that no one is above getting it, despite their job or class or whatever. My question, and I still think it's a real one, is whether it will be harder for me to meet people who are accepting of me with this condition. If I were dating in a group where the prevalence of herpes was really high--like, for instance, middle aged black women, then it seems logical to think that it would be easier to find someone else who has it or knows others who Have it. Because I am not in that dating group, I think it will be harder for me. That's all I was trying to say. I guess I'm just hoping that ppl on here would reassure me that that's not true. It's hard for me to talk about these things which is why I came online to an anonymous message board. Sorry and thanks for the response. This has definitely been a huge and scary wake up call for me. And again I'm sorry if I'm coming across the wrong way. It's probably the fear talking. But damn it if that fear is not real

I am 27 years old and just got the diagnosis--I think I know where I got it, and all of the what-ifs--(What if I had just stayed in that night, what if I had gone back to my house instead of to hers, etc)--are enough to drive me insane. But I'm trying to move forward now and quit living in the past. I've not had any bad symptoms (my first episode was relatively minor), and I'm not very troubled by the physical aspects of the disease. It's the whole transmission/disclosing/rejection thing that's got me. I've done enough reading on the web to know that that's a common fear. My question is not just the generic "will anyone ever like me again" because I know some people will. I disclosed to the girl I have been seeing and she still wants to see me. I'm taking the suppressives now and we're using protection. But I guess I now feel sort of trapped in the sense that if I lose her (or if I decide I don't want to marry her), then I will be severely limited in my dating pool. I know you say a lot of positive things on the website about how your love life does not have to be limited, but I know it will be. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of young, attractive people will hear the word come out of your mouth and run the other way. Hell, before all of this happened to me, I would have done the same thing. The reason people shy away is not because of the physical symptoms--who hasn't had a rash? It's because of the perception (and reality, I assume) that having it is a HUGE liability in the dating pool. Every relationship ends in a break up or marriage, and most of them are break ups. I don't think many girls who don't have it would be willing to risk picking it up knowing that our relationship would probably be temporary. Then there's the possibility of dating someone else with the virus. I'm probably about to sound like a prick, but what type of people tend to get herpes? I know it is stereotypical to think that only low-class people have these sorts of problems, but I can't help but think that that is true. The statistics actually bear this out--black men and women have a far higher prevalence of H. And because socioeconomic class in this country follows racial lines, that stat is a good indication that H--like most diseases and health problems--is more common among low-income people. All of this is very scary to me. Again, at the risk of sounding like a prick, I just want to share my background with you to explain my concern: I have a job at a large law firm in a large American city. Most of my friends have good jobs and successful careers. I want to date and ultimately marry someone whose background is similar to mine: an attractive, professional, well-educated woman. But now I wonder if that's ever going to happen. Do I just stay with the girl I'm with now? She likes me enough to not let this be a deal-breaker. But even she told me that if I had known I had H when I first met her, she wouldn't have stuck around. (I told her as soon as I found out I had it and, thus far, she's in the clear). I consider her to be a kind, compassionate, and thoughtful person. And even she would have ditched me if I had found out that I had this when we first started dating. This whole thing is just tormenting my thoughts day and night. I've never had a problem meeting women. But now all of a sudden my confidence is zapped. I can't imagine that the same kind of women who have been attracted to me in the past would be attracted to me now. Or at least, they would not be attracted to me once those three little words came out of my mouth. So, I guess I'm just looking for some real talk from you. Is it true that my dating pool will be severely or even substantially restricted now? Is it true that, as you go on up the socioeconomic ladder, fewer and fewer people have H? I know that H rates increase as the population ages. Again, that 1 in 4 or 5 statistic is less comforting when I think about how the population of H+ sufferers is concentrated in an older population of lower-income people. All of this makes the dating pool even smaller if I'm trying to be with someone who runs in the same social circles as me. Finally, is there any hope for a cure or vaccine or anything on the horizon relatively soon (Pritelovir, Ian Frazer, Genoccea, etc)? I know you say the best cure is to accept yourself, imperfections and all, but I am still anxious to hear about new medical developments. One of my good friends (a male) has HPV, and no one he's disclosed it to cares because most of them have gotten the gardasil vaccine. Even if I can't be cured, the availability of a vaccine for others would be huge. Sorry if my post comes across as too negative or abrupt. I've tried to see things in the optimistic light y'all throw over on the forums about how H is an opportunity and it can be a force for positive change in your life. I'll agree that I was probably being a little reckless sexually. To the extent that this experience has caused me to hit the brakes, that's all for the best. But I just can't see how having this disease will do anything other than reduce the pool of women who are willing to date me and force me to have an awkward conversation before having sex for the rest of my life. It's enough to make a guy just want to give up. I realize that I'm not special or immune to H or other health issues because I have a fancy job or something. Obviously, I'm a case-in-point that H crosses socio-economic borders as well as racial/age ones. I know all of that to be theoretically true. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm part of a minority that is looked down upon by a lot of people. And that we're looked down upon particularly by the type of people I work with and hang out with. Any thoughts are appreciated.