cacciato_

justadude, sorry to hear about your outbreak. i'm not a doctor or anything of the sort, but i have done a fair amount of reading on the ol' subject. unfortunately, there is no "normal". herpes effects everyone uniquely. some people will never get symptoms, while others will have numerous outbreaks. there are all kinds of stats on the internet about recurrences, but your body will handle it in its own way. the good news is that it will only get better from here. your body is adjusting to this new infection and will become more efficient at handling it. from what i've read, things get considerably better after the first year. take care of yourself both physically and mentally. also, you might want to look into suppressive therapy if the outbreaks are causing you mental anguish. this is a touchy subject and everyone will have their own take on it. i sort of side with terri warren, the writer of a great book on herpes. she basically says that the first year can be rough mentally, so she recommends all her patients take suppressive therapy. like i said, it's totally a personal choice and there is no "correct" answer, just wanted to throw it out there. hang in there. things will get better. treat yourself right.

"playful romp"... i like it.

those stats you gave are viral shedding rates, not transmission rates.

give the antibiotics some time to kick in. if you're still feeling paranoid, get a swab test. after my initial genital infection i developed a "sort of cold sore" looking thing on my mouth. the doctor said not to worry, but i shelled out the money for a swab test. my mind runs wild and for me it was nice peace of mind.

according to everything i've read, autoinoculation is extremely difficult, but possible. i guess you could get it swabbed for piece of mind.

hey, thanks for posting. adrial pointed me in this direction because this has been a majorly annoying issue for me. i had my initial genital hsv-1 infection about 10 weeks ago. nothing too serious, but the lymph nodes on the right side of groin swelled up. not exactly painful, but definitely an annoying pressure or heaviness. fortunately, i have not had a subsequent outbreak, but the lymph node pressure comes and goes with quite a bit of frequency. mostly it's just annoying physically, but causes me quite a bit of mental stress. it's hard for me not to focus on herpes all day when my groin feels swollen. like you, my doctors are sort of stumped. this also adds to my frustration and the feeling of, "when will this ever go away?" just know that you're not alone on this one. head up.

First and foremost, hello everyone. Please bear with me on my first post. I'm generally not a very organized person and this new turn of events has my thoughts even more jumbled up than usual. (on a total tangent, I had to look up whether to use bear or bare for "bear with me". in case you were curious, it's apparently bear. see, you might have learned something already!) So, rewind about four weeks ago (insert movie flashback visual and sound effects). I returned from a fairly long year deployment to Afghanistan. Things went about as well as a deployment can. Had some tough days, but I was coming home in one piece. Like most good single soldiers, I had two things on my mind when I returned home: alcohol and women. I quickly found both. I found a nice young lady in the local area and we had protected sex twice. About three days after this encounter I noticed a few red bumps on the nether region. Spoke to the girl again and she assured me she had no symptoms and had recently had a STD test. Little did either of us know that HSV-1 could cause genital outbreaks. Bumps didn't hurt, but wouldn't go away either. Went to Planned Parenthood and was none too happy to get swabbed. About a week later I learned that I did indeed have genital HSV-1. At this point I was more confused than anything. Based on my research (I feel like I should be awarded a genital herpes Ph.D), I learned that ghsv-1 is almost always transmitted through oral sex. Well, I didn't receive oral sex, but still got it. However, I did date a girl about three years ago who would get "cold sores" about twice a year. Theoretically, I guess the virus could have been dormant from her, but honestly it doesn't really matter who gave it to me. The glaring fact still stands that I have genital herpes. Still hard for me to even type that, but it is what it is. So, I've gone through (and am still going through) the range of emotions. Anger, shame, despair, loneliness... Loneliness is probably the hardest. I went from an environment of being with "my guys" for a year. Living in a wood hut (a wooden fort is what we affectionately called it) with seven other soldiers who I trusted my life with. Like family, we didn't always get along, but they truly were brothers to me. Returning to living alone was not an easy transition. That, coupled with this annoying, excuse my language, really fucking annoying skin condition has made life pretty tough. I know it's still early in the process, but it has caused me quite a bit of mental anguish. I have spoken to Adrial about the shame aspect. At this point, it's hard not to feel shame because I blame myself for being an idiot. I guess I just have the same concern that every person here does: who will ever want me again? Granted, I think that's a totally human emotion, but this infection has made life hard. I know it's not who I am, but that has been a struggle. I am fairly lucky to have ghsv-1 from the reading I have done, but I am terrified to reveal this to someone. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but the idea of telling a woman that, "I have genital herpes" is a scary one. The stigma surrounding the infection is pretty strong. Hell, I have the same exact virus that causes cold sores. Actually, my site of infection supposedly makes the symptoms less intense and the shedding less frequent. However, we all know how bad GENITAL HERPES sounds. Oh well, I am just trying to put everything in perspective. Compared to the things I saw in the 'Stan, this infection is just not a big deal. I really like the vibe on this site and just wanted to introduce myself.