libra

I thought about chronic fatigue since all of the other symptoms apply but I don't feel tired all the time and I don't feel like my memory or concentration is any different. The weird joint pain throws me off the most

I highly doubt you'll pass it on to him if you've had it for years, know you have it, and know your body. There are many people here who've had unprotected sex with their H free partners without passing it on. Relax, it's great that you told him when you did. Take it as a lesson learned and tell people before having sex with them from now on.

Oh ok I was thinking the herpes triggered an autoimmune disease. It seems so odd to be worrying about arthritis when I'm 20 but I have a random dull tapping pain in my wrists, knees, elbows and ankles. It doesn't happen all the time but it happens quite often. I realized the muscle pains are definitely due to the outbreaks but the muscle twitching and joint pain aren't only there when I have outbreaks. Inflammation does cause those kinds of problems so maybe I should wait for a few months and see how my body is when the virus calms down.

The actual obs don't hurt anymore. They heal in about a week and only feel sensitive for a day or two. It's mostly the muscle and joint pain which I think I'm going to see a rheumatologist about.

I've always had a rocky relationship with my family members and this just made it even worse which I know is causing the stress and hopefully the pain too. Sadly, I think I'll be less stressed when I go back to school in a few weeks. I'd be able to forget about it and live my life if it weren't for the constant pain working as a reminder. I also found out yesterday that the friend I got it from knew he probably had it because his ex girlfriend who also used to be my friend definitely has it. I'm relieved I don't have to feel guilty that I gave it to him but I've been having the most painful 2 months of my life because of him. The antivirals do seem to give me an extra two weeks with no obs but I didn't have as much achiness in my legs and knees before I started taking them. I'm definitely trying to suck it up until next year but my goodness it's so hard. My dad has diabetes and I get so mad and jealous whenever he talks openly about his meds and struggle since I know I don't have anyone except you guys to talk about it with. When I go back to campus I can go to counseling but as of now I'm all alone and barely making it through every day.

I only drank once during my last ob and I did notice it made that once worse. I sleep a lot but I do get very stressed out. It's mostly my environment though and I'll be moving away in a few weeks. Maybe things will change when I leave. I'm hoping I just don't have enough antibodies yet and that I will in a few months I just haven't seen many posts about having back to back outbreaks for months then being fine around the half-year mark.

Is it normal to have back to back outbreaks for 2 months? Usually there's about a week in between and I've had four. I tested negative for everything else but I'm worrying that if it isn't normal something else might be happening and just not showing up. I started taking the antivirals after the third outbreak but they don't seem to stop them.

Sorry, here's the post! Im back again but in a much better mental state I'm a little over 2 months in from the day I'm 99% sure I contracted H and I'm not sure whether or not I'll know when it's safe to have sex again. This should probably go in the my herpes story category but the question might require a backstory. Not sure. I got this from a silly one night stand with my best guy friend from high school and we barely even had sex. I'd say it was more of a drunken step up from dry humping. We talked a few days before it happened about testing and how both of us were negative for everything and I trusted him because I knew him so well. At the time I didn't know anything about herpes except that it's classified as an std so like most people I assumed that when results come back negative that meant herpes too. I'm guessing he thought the same thing because around 3 days later I felt terrible muscle aches that went away after I took some Advil and went to sleep then I felt like I was having a yeast infection which I've had before so I didn't think much of it. By the fifth day I was on the beach with my friend who was visiting from Michigan and I knew something was wrong because the pain was a different kind of pain. Looking back I'm guessing all that sun exposure probably contributed to the horrible outbreak too. She tried to calm my nerves by telling me I probably just had my swimsuit on for too long and had some kind of infection from that but when I went to the bathroom and checked I started to think that wasn't the case. We were out of the country that day and when we got back that night I woke up around 3 in the morning still able to walk but in some serious pain so I went to the ER and the doctor took forever to come in but when she did finally come in she took one look and knew. It sucked. She said, "ooh sweetheart let me be wrong but I think you have herpes." I thought I was going to die but she said she had a friend with 3 kids whose husband has herpes so it's possible to live a normal life. I want nothing more than to have a family someday so that calmed my nerves a lot because I was panicking on the inside. I'd been dating a guy for a little less than a year by the time I hooked up with my friend and we didn't communicate much about our relationship status until two weeks before I hooked up with my friend. We talked and went out for 3 months before we started having sex and it became a primarily physical relationship but we did actually enjoy each other's company and the relationship is growing just at an extremely slow pace. I really like him as a person but we didn't talk much after I left for summer vacation so I assumed he felt pressured to ask me to be his girlfriend and that he didn't really mean it, at least not yet. So I mistakenly told myself that since we didn't really act like a couple it wouldn't matter if I did something with someone else just that once. Then ta-dah, I got this. The day after the hospital called to confirm my results (ghsv-2) I told both of them that I had it and that it sucked so they should get tested. My best friend didn't comment much which made me feel suspicious but I still don't think he gave it to me knowingly. My new boyfriend said he got tested a few months ago so he didn't understand how I got it but at the time I still didn't know that they don't test for it unless you ask, so I just told him I probably got it before I met him. I knew I had to tell him I had it for safety reasons but I just couldn't risk hurting him emotionally by telling him I hooked up with someone else. A few nights ago he asked how I was feeling and I told him my fourth outbreak in 2 months had healed so I was feeling pretty good. Then he started asking questions about herpes and how my future would be affected by it and what it would mean for our relationship which ended up bringing us closer together and letting me know that he was serious about making things work between us and cared more about how I felt than he did about the stigma. I'm not sure if I was right but I told him the chances of me passing it on to him are super low if we use condoms and I'm not currently taking suppressive therapy but I would if I absolutely have to. He asked if sex would hurt and I said it shouldn't if we use enough lube. I also heard taking a shower immediately afterwards and blow drying the area helps so I'd try that. He really likes oral so I said it should be fine since I have type 2 and the chances of me giving him oral hsv2 are slim to none. So my questions are: is all of that correct/fair? It's hard for me to tell what's pain from an outbreak coming on and what's just some other muscle ache so should I wait for a few months before we have sex again? If so how long? By the time I see him again I will have had it for 3 months. And when is an outbreak considered over? The skin heals but it takes a while for the normal color to come back. Sometimes weeks, and by then I'll probably be close to getting another outbreak (I'm almost certain they come a week before I get my period and heal about a week and 3 days later). I'm also wondering if anyone has any experience with getting tested for stds with partners. I feel just as anxious about that as I did about disclosing. I know it's easier to contract other stds if you have herpes so I don't want to take that risk. Hopefully the condoms do their job but they aren't perfect. I know I shouldn't have to worry about his reaction but I've asked for him to accept a lot already and don't want him to feel like I'm accusing him of anything or like I don't trust him.

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That's awesome! Good to know things are becoming much more bearable 9 months down the line.

You're such an awesome mom! Mine basically stopped speaking to me because I have it and I'm 20 lol. Guess that lack of communication is what got me here in the first place. I wouldn't pester your daughter too much about it but let her know that joining the crowd isn't always necessary. If she were my daughter id tell her that stigma just comes from miseducation and people trying to fit in by thinking like the masses. She can have a small group of amazing friends instead of having the whole school fawn over her and still be just as happy as she was before. And even though it's fun to have a boyfriend, there are many more long term benefits of focusing on yourself for a while especially in high school when it comes time to apply for college and decide where you'd like to spend the first 4 years of your life as a semi-independent person.

Thanks! I went back on the medicine (trying acyclovir twice a day since the valtrex was making me tired) but I'm still getting these random pains. My doctor said the leg soreness could just be hormones but I know that's not the case because I've never had them before and the shooting pains in my lower back last about a second and happen out of nowhere. Everyone says it's supposed to just be a skin condition which I could handle but it seems like this is affecting everything. Ugh, I just hope it'll be over soon enough.

Thanks! And I definitely will!

I've been having outbreaks since May 29th with only a few days off in between the third and fourth outbreak. I know it hasn't been a very long time since my primary ob but I'm seeing a bit of a pattern between the obs (with the exception of the primary one) and my menstrual cycle. I don't feel comfortable taking medicine every day but I'm wondering if there's a way for me to take only a few doses before I feel a period coming on. I read somewhere that it might be ok to take 2 pills the day before without having to take the full 3 day dose. I've never had predictable periods and I can never tell when a full blown outbreak is coming either because I feel the leg aches at random times (sometimes before an actual outbreak at which point the aches stop and the sores come and sometimes nothing happens and they continue, especially when I tried valtrex). I figure if I only get them during that time it might not be worth it to take suppressive therapy if I'll still have an ob with my period anyway. Does anyone here get them around every period? And if so, does it get better with time? I changed my diet to try to get more lysine than arginine in, probiotics daily, more relaxation (which might be harder after summer break but *crossing fingers* senior year might not be too bad), garlic, tea tree oil, aloe vera, letting everything air out now and then, and hopefully there'll come a time when I'm able to exercise again. I'm holding out hope that in the future my body will stop these terrible obs from coming around altogether but it would be nice to hear from someone who had a similar first-few-months/first year experience who doesn't have to constantly deal with pain and flare ups anymore. I also want to point out that I'm so glad this site exists. I've only told my mom and 2 friends about my H diagnosis and my friends were nice about it but still can't provide much support since they can't fully understand what I'm going through. I can tell it inconveniences them since I have to turn down their offers to go out and do things because walking can get super uncomfortable. It's a blessing and a curse that it's basically an invisible illness. Especially because people who don't know get mad because they think I'm either avoiding/abandoning them or just being lazy since I look fine on the outside (in clothes). My mom didn't take it well and I can tell she thinks I'm some diseased slut who gave into peer pressure, none of which is true except maybe the diseased part but even I don't feel like this disease is who I am. I just have it. So bottom line, you guys are awesome! For all of the newbs like myself, I'm sure we can all think of something that happened to us in the past that we thought we just couldn't get through and then we *gasp* made it through. I also want to come back and update people about my experience as frequently as possible because it really sucked reading a million posts on a million different sites that sounded like what was happening to me and then wondering what the outcome was for that person because they didn't go back and say "hey I'm I wrote this a few years ago and here's how fabulous my life has become since then." I'm assuming this means that it does get better over time but it's hard to let that sink in without hearing from many different people who've had different experiences with herpes and lived to tell their tales lol. So kudos and thanks to the herpes vets here and hopefully we can all be helpful herpes vets soon enough.

Hi everyone! If anyone is up for being H buddies in the Philadelphia area I'd love to hang out and talk! I'm also completely open to pm or having some other form of communication.

Thanks!! I'll definitely try these different treatment options and do my best to stay healthy.

I was diagnosed 5 weeks ago and have been having nonstop outbreaks ever since. I received a prescription for Valtrex to take 500mg a day as suppressive therapy and was wondering if it will take a while to kick in. I'm not healed from an outbreak that started around a week ago so I started taking 2 500mg pills a day since Monday and now I'm starting to feel prodrome pain in my left leg. Is it normal to feel the pain without experiencing the painful blisters? [This may be graphic] My outbreaks are excruciatingly painful and don't look like the typical small blisters, they're huge sores. So if anyone experiences this, do they get smaller and less painful over time? And if you're taking Valtrex how much do you take? I'm concerned about the short and long term side effects but I feel like I might need a heavier dosage if this continues.