H_is_for_Hope

Thanks Dancer...I understand and appreciate all you said. For me it is "health anxiety" aka "hypochondria" and as much as I know that I need to work on the anxiety issues, I just know that if I could "get rid" of this virus, I would feel less contaminated. Yes...my anxiety would still be there, it wouldn't change the fact that by nature I am an anxious person. And yes, I would still get anxious about other medical things but I wouldn't have to worry about H. :) And I hate the thought that drug companies might hinder the process of finding a cure because it wouldn't make them enough money. Someone needs to consider the emotional toll...the money spent on counseling, therapy, anti-anxiety meds, etc. Sorry to sound negative and I don't want to be a downer..I just hope that someone is working on it :)

Hugs to you too! :)

I get all that you are saying...I really do. But I have had this for almost 30 years and although it physically has not caused me much of a problem, the emotional toll has been tremendous and continues to be an emotional problem for me almost 3 decades later. Yes, I can work on that through therapy, but I know that a cure would go a long way in helping me put this behind me. It would be a dream come true.

It actually makes me really angry to think that the "powers that be" are not motivated to find a cure because drug companies make more money from suppressive medication rather than a cure. I know we can't put our lives on hold waiting for a cure and yes I know that H is just a nuisance and not a serious medical condition HOWEVER it DOES cause a lot of emotional grief and psychological distress and I think that aspect should not be overlooked. Eliminating the stigma seems very unlikely (sorry to sound so pessimistic) and finding a cure would bring so much emotional relief to SO many people. I know I would be willing to pay big money for a cure. Just venting :)

I agree with ALL that Dancer just said! :) But keep in mind, that asymptomatic shedding MEANS exactly that....that THERE ARE NO SYMPTOMS. So there really is no way to know unfortunately :(

I have had genital HSV2 for almost 30 years and I have never noticed a diet connection. I think this is an individual matter and varies from person to person..I have read things about people saying that chocolate, nuts, and caffeine are triggers for them..maybe that is true for SOME of the population, but definitely not everyone. My trigger is primarily intense emotional stress. I have never had chronic outbreaks..some years I have had no outbreaks, and other years I might have 1 or 2 outbreaks. All that being said, I want to mention that I have been a "peanut butter" addict most of my life. I probably hold the world's record for eating peanut butter sandwiches :). Seriously, I have eaten peanut butter on an almost daily basis for years (not so much anymore but I used to) and also have eaten chocolate VERY frequently. Never triggered a problem for me. I admit, that when I hear about the "diet triggers" that I do get nervous thinking I should avoid those foods, but my husband rolls his eyes at me and reminds me that I have eaten whatever I have wanted my whole life, and it never affected me. My advice is, just eat like you normally would and if you think you are having diet triggers, then start modifying. ;)

It is not likely that you have this. You are doing the right thing getting it checked with the proper tests and will be able to put this behind you someday. I have never heard of a connection to vertigo. However, anxiety can definitely cause vertigo. Hugs!

Oh I'm sure what you are feeling is not in your head :) I just know with me, that I get weird symptoms when I am focusing (not just with H but with anything). Keeping my fingers crossed for you that the symptoms ease up!!

@whitedaisies Are you completely sure that what you are feeling all the time is prodrome? Just asking because I know with me ( I'm a total hypochondriac overly in tuned to bodily sensations especially down below) that if I am concentrating on that area of my body, I will just start feeling things. I don't mean to question what you are feeling...You of course understand your body better than anyone...but just wanted to kind of offer some food for thought that maybe sometimes the prodrome sensations might not actually be from H. Also not sure if this is true, but I think I was told once by my doctor that if you are on the anti virals, that the virus might not be easily detected even if a sore is present because the meds are weakening the virus on the skin or something like that. Anyway, I hope you feel better soon!

You might want to check with your own doctor or pharmacist for a professional opinion but my ob/gyn doctor has told me that alcohol does not interfere with the medication nor does it change the efficacy of the drug. I have had a drink or two while on the medication. Enjoy your vacation :)

Sorry you are going through this. Just wanted to say that I have had hsv2 for almost 30 years (got it when I was a teenager) and I am an extremely fit woman and workout ALL THE TIME. Only once in my entire history have I had an outbreak triggered by strenuous exercise and that was because I was doing a very extreme cardio program. And after the outbreak passed, I continued on with the extreme routine for a few more months with no problems. H will not prevent you from continuing on with fitness!!!

@Lady_j988 An asymptomatic carrier is someone who has tested positive for the virus but has not had any outbreaks yet (or they have outbreaks that they aren't aware of). And yes they can pass on the virus through shedding just like anyone else.

Oh if I could give you a hug I would!! Dancer you make such perfect sense, these are the words I need to hear. I can't thank you enough. Yes, I have had this for my ENTIRE sexual life. I got it when I was 16 from an older guy who forced himself on me. (I was a virgin). Last night I kept looking at this itchy spot over and over. I thought I saw a little bump there but it was so very hard to see. There is a hair right next to that spot and hubby kept saying it was probably just irritated because maybe that hair was trying to become ingrown or something like that. No soreness or anything either. And he kept saying "You have never had an issue in that area of skin before..it's nothing." This morning it is still itchy but when I look at it, the skin is totally normal! Whatever bump was there last night is gone. So of course my mind thinks, well it is the meds that are clearing it up. But of course there is the possibility that it is not H to begin with! I would love to get therapy from a professional that specializes in hypochondria and that also is knowledgable about H. But how to find such a person? Several years ago I was on zoloft for anxiety. I know I probably should go back on that too. I just can't thank you enough, because my fear was that after describing these symptoms, that someone on here would say "well yeah that sounds like H, you should be careful, get it swabbed", etc. But what you say makes sense, I have had this for almost 3 decades and I guess it would be extremely odd for me to get symptoms in a spot that I never had a problem with before. After looking at this over and over last night and hubby saying it was nothing I said, "Oh you would have sex with me now??" And he was like "YES let's do it" and I said "omg you are CRAZY!!" But really I am clearly the crazy one :)

Big hugs to you. I don't know if I have the right words to help you feel better but I believe that someday, when you connect with the right person and you WILL :)...that you will look back on this rejection and realize that this one closed door has led you to an open door of a wonderful relationship with someone that can truly make you happy. I know hard to be optimistic, but this is HIS loss. Maybe he would have been non-accepting of other things as well...this shows his true colors.

Thank you so much...I do understand everything you are saying. I truly appreciate your time and attention as so many others I am sure appreciate on here as well. I am in a very bad place emotionally with this right now. I know I will eventually be ok but I have to work through this. Most of the times that I have had outbreaks, they are usually in the anal area and can be confused easily with hemorroids. It took me years to figure out that they were outbreaks. And being that I do have ongoing problems with real hemorroids, I am constantly worried because I frequently have discomfort in that area. I guess it is obvious when it actually IS an outbreak but every itch or tenderness in that area makes me nervous. Sometimes (rarely though) I have had outbreak symptoms on the outer left labia but like I said MOST of the time it is in the anal region, and always on the left side of my body. Now today I am feeling this itchy red area in the crease of the back of my thigh where my butt cheek meets my leg. Never have I been aware of an outbreak in that spot, I have no idea if this is just irritation from underwear rubbing or whatever. But this is what makes me insane...even if the irritation goes away, how do I know if it was H. And now because of this irritation I feel like I should avoid sex again. I keep reading on here on how EVERY and ANY symptom down there *CAN* be H...so it's like every symptom makes me crazy. It's like the more I read about it, the worse I become. Ten years ago if I had this same itchy feeling in the crease of the back of my thigh I never would have suspected H. Now EVERYTHING makes me suspicious and I don't know what to think. :( It is on the right side of my body, and all other outbreaks in past were on left, but not sure if that even matters.

Thank you so much to all of you...I have so much to say and plan on sticking on around and posting some stuff as time goes on. @WCSDancer2010 Thank you for the pep talk and yes I completely agree that I need to get my emotional stress/OCD/anxiety under control. My mother says the same thing to me all the time. This is easier said than done :) because I have been this way my whole life. My hypochondriac tendencies make having H very challenging for me because I naturally pay LOTS of attention to every single sensation I feel in my body. I am probably aware of and feel things that the average person would not even notice. For instance, every little itch makes me paranoid thinking that it is H. Now, my rational logical part of my mind is smart enough to know that every single itch and tingle could not possibly be H. Sometimes it is probably nothing at all or sometimes it could be psychosomatic...if you concentrate on a body part hard enough you will "feel" things. But I always think "what if" it is H...I should avoid sex. And what happens is I start to live in fear of my body. You said this above: "I would hope that given that you have done fine all these years without them, that over time you will be able to go back to using them to control impending OB's and for "special times" that you want to make sure to not have an OB." Okay so this is part of my current confusion. My ob/gyn over the years had always advised that if I want to avoid an OB for a particular or special week (like a vacation for example) that I could simply take the antivirals for that week and I wouldn't have to worry. Based on your statement above, I am assuming you agree with this protocol? I really want to believe this is true but recently I have come across conflicting information and I just don't know what is correct anymore. For instance, the infectious disease doctor I talked to gave me the impression that taking the meds here and there for one week or so in that fashion does not really offer protection. Also I think I might have read on the Westover site somewhere that it takes approximately 5 days of daily meds to start suppressing the virus and to protect your partner. So based on that, I would think that if a person wanted to avoid H problems on a vacation, that starting the meds at least 5 days beforehand would be the thing to do? I want to believe that I can control the virus for special times like that, but just want to make sure that I understand correctly and wondering if anyone on here has experience with that. Maybe the infectious disease doctor was wrong or I misunderstood the way he explained. For now, I do feel comforted knowing that the daily meds are minimizing any shedding as much as possible. I have also read so many things on the internet about people not having any outbreaks while taking suppressive antivirals daily. My ob/gyn also claims that she has patients that have been on the meds for over 10 years with zero outbreaks. I think this is why I was so disappointed that I had breakthrough symptoms while only taking the meds for 5 months. I felt like the floor was pulled out from underneath me and that the meds were failing me. But now it is slowly sinking in that stress can still trigger problems even while on the meds. Also, I have a bit of a theory....perhaps these people that claim they are having ZERO outbreaks while taking antivirals are actually having symptoms occasionally but they are not aware of them. Again thank you to all who responded in here...you will be hearing more from me! xoxo

I do think the meds work for me, whenever I take them for outbreaks, they clear the symptoms up quick and these recent episodes were very mild. I also believe the one pill daily is the proper regimen for people who get fewer than 6 outbreaks per year. So it seems right. I just want to know the proper way of increasing the dosage if I do get a problem or how to ward off a problem if I think I am having a stressful week. As to answer the question about condoms. We used condoms in the beginning of marriage before having kids. After we had kids, hubby chose to get a vasectomy and did not want to use them anymore. So for the past 7 years or so no condoms. I only recently started taking the daily meds within the past year. I took them because I started obsessing about this virus (directly after an outbreak) and wanted to feel like I was "in control". To our knowledge, he has never caught this from me in all the years. He was always understanding about this from the beginning; but he is a laid back "no worry" person...the opposite of my personality :)

Hi..I'm new to posting on here, but have been reading through this forum a lot lately and feel like I have found a good place :). I have lots on my mind, but for now hoping to clear up some confusion on anti-virals. I am a 40-something female, have had HSV2 genitally for 27 years...but although the virus isn't new to me, I'm completely confused about the medication. In the past, I've only used medication episodically for outbreaks. Sometimes (at the suggestion of my ob/gyn doctor) I would take the meds during certain weeks that I wanted to "avoid" outbreaks...like for a vacation. She kind of have me the impression that it was extremely unlikely to get an outbreak while taking the pills. By the way, I typically only get 1 or 2 outbreaks a year..almost 3 decades of having this, I never had a history of chronic outbreaks. This past year I have been obsessing about H. So she suggested I start taking it daily as suppressive. I take one pill, 500mg valacyclovir per day. After 5 months of faithfully taking it daily, I had a super stressful week and developed very minor symptoms of an outbreak which devastated me because I was led to believe the medication would not allow me to have an outbreak. I do know that stress is a big trigger, and I guess I should mention that I am a high anxiety kind of girl, OCD personality, and hypochondriac tendencies. Once I noticed the symptoms (which I am checking everyday with a mirror like an obsessed crazy person) I took a 2nd pill for 3 days. In other words, for 3 days I took 2 pills spaced 12 hours apart. (One pill in morning and the other at evening). By the end of the 3rd day, the symptoms disappeared and the next day I went back to 1 pill per day. Less than 3 weeks later, I had another bout of emotional stress (mostly relating to me being SO upset about the recent outbreak) and I got more mild symptoms of an outbreak. I doubled up on the pills for another 3 days and symptoms disappeared. Never in my life have I had a frequency of outbreaks like this...usually there would be AT LEAST 6 months between outbreaks. Other times in my life I would go a couple years without them. But I do realize that my emotional stress is the culprit. Now, after reading lots of stuff on here and elsewhere, and after consulting an infectious disease doctor, I'm starting to understand that high stress will bring on symptoms, regardless of the medication. That fact is just starting to sink in. But what I'm unclear about, because different doctors say different things..is the dosing. When I double up and take 2 pills per day, should I be taking them 12 hours apart or gulping both pills down at the same time. Does it matter? I just want to do what will work the best! Also wanted to mention, I am married for almost 20 years, hubby tells me to stop worrying, stop obsessing about this but it is hard for me! Sorry for long post and thanks for listening!