janedoe

Hi, I have an embarrassing question... Since I got my diagnosis, there is this issue lingering in my mind. Since my outbreaks occur on the outer parts of my vagina with pubic hair, I have no idea how to wax. Personally, I have shaving. It irritates my skin and honestly, doesn't do much good for me. I want to get a bikini wax but I am terrified of the idea that passing it onto someone since the wax is melted in a common pot. Also, the nurse told me that sharing wet towels might be a medium of transmission, I figured a hot wax pot might cause the virus to live just enough to pass on others. So my question is how do I wax? Is going to a spa or beauty salon an option? Sorry for the wierd question. I hate this. I hate that now I have to recalculate every aspect of my life because of my diagnosis. Can I swim in a pool? Can I play with my 1 year old nephew in the sea? Can I share a towel with my sister? Can I wash my underwear with sister's clothes? OBs are bad enough and this is not helping.

Hi everybody, I am new here. I saw a post with the question "Why don't they include herpes in a regular STI screening?" and I thought, as a scientist I have some answers. At the beginning of my career, I was asked to choose my field of study. It is not an official requirement but you have to choose your niche and stick to it. You cannot cover all subjects in your field so you have to choose a topic. But not just any topic. Technically, you are free to choose whatever you want but in reality, choosing an obscure field means you cannot find a job and you cannot have grant money. Why? Because every year, institutions and governments sort of pick "hot topics" like global warming, diabetes or artificial intelligence. These hot topics have the priority in the distribution of grant money. And universities and research institutes hire people based on that ranking - what kind of topic are you researching and will it generate money? Apparently, herpes does not have a high ranking which means no demand in choosing herpes as a research subject. From the pharmaceutical companies' point of view - there is no need to invest more money into herpes research to find a better solution. They are already generating a lot of profit from existing drugs and they somewhat work - so, why bother engineering a better one? Also, why cure it? Technically speaking curing herpes would mean lost profits. It is a life-long condition, if you cure it, you are losing the profit. Also, what I understand is medical community sort of downplays the herpes. It is not a life threatening condition, you can live with it. After the first outbreak, you don't need to go to doctor everytime you have an outbreak. Take the medication and you can resume your life. In short, they don't have to deal with it so much like diabetes. I see a serious hypocrisy here: If it is not a serious condition, why scare people? If it is serious, why not use better screening techniques? Like many members pointed out, if we can make people aware about herpes and make it a high profile subject, certainly it could change the flow of grant money and public's perception. Eventually, that means better research, better treatments and better screening.

Also, I am enraged by this comment. " at least im not a slut like you, at least i don't have herpes". What is that even mean? Do you have many sexual partners in the past? Good for you - at least now, you know your body better and how to treat your partners. Do you lack some moral compass? I don't think so, you are taking responsibility for your actions. Did God or other divine entity punish you for sleeping someone - give you herpes as a part of your punishment? I don't think so. 6 billion people in the planet and God hand picked you to have this disease to punish you, right? Come on my friend. It was just bad luck. Actually it wasn't the bad luck, you were just on the left side of the distribution. It is Math. It can happen to anybody. That has nothing to do with being a slut. If you are a slut - no judgement, like I said good for you. You had desires and acted on it. So what? Honestly, in future if someone tells me that I am a slut and/or I deserve this disease, I won't get mad, I don't feel hurt. I just laugh. I figured, if they tell me such things, they show their true colours, their lack of understanding logic, how things work in life, their logically impaired judgement. It has nothing to do with me.

Take the H out of the equation. And think-would the relationship work? Honestly, I don't think so. Throwing someone their insecurities or hardships as an excuse to leave them or hurt them is a sign of being immature. The goal of being in a relationship or marriage is to built a life together. Share your life with someone. If you have a good thing going, you don't try to destroy it. Same thing with your career. If your career is great and you are happy, do you destroy it? NO. I recently diagnosed and I thought a lot about this. I had many disfunctional relationships in the past. I was emotionally unavailable and most of the time, I picked the wrong guys. We broke up, I blamed myself for having commitment issues or other issues because I felt that I deserved the blame. I convinced myself the problem is me. Now I realized that the problem is I was picking a.sholes purposefully to avoid a connection. They were great until the point that they hurt me because that is what an immature person do. There is no blame on H in all of this. I didn't have the H that time. If they blame you for having H, they are trying to find a way to weasel out of the the relationship. Or they are trying to make themselves stronger by hurting you. Those have nothing to do with the H. In this context, H is just the SUBJECT, not the PROBLEM. Honestly, at this point if I find a guy who is mature and responsible and if I am convinced that we can built a life together, I would cheerish that relationship. I don't hurt the other person, why would I? I love him, hurting him basically means hurting myself. All in all, like I said H is not the problem here. It is a tool that the the other person used to leave you. H isn't the source of your relationship problems, it is just the buffer which is used to hide real problems. Because admitting you are bored in the relationship or you don't want it anymore is hard, you are taking responsibility. So they used the H as an easy way out in which they have no guilt. Real love is hard to find with or without H. You are just unlucky or picking the wrong person. Don't feel bad. It has no purpose. Live your life, be happy and sooner or later you are gonna find the one.

Hi, Little back story here: I just diagnosed last week. Had my initial outbreak. I think the sores are gone now. I didn't look, I feel like my genitals are gonna bite me if I look down there. I was really depressed last week. I couldn't get out the bed, couldn't do my job. After posting here, I found a little peace and I felt almost fine... Until today. The more I think about it, I get more angry. How could I be this stupid? Warning signs were there...How did I trust this guy? I should have known better. He played me, cheated on me and gave me this life long struggle. You cannot believe the amount of anger I feel to myself and the world. I can feel the hate flowing through my veins. Thanks to him, I have to have this FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. What would I say about myself? "Hi, my name is janedoe and I am a really nice person. Btw, I have herpes." How can I forgive myself? I don't wanna feel this anger. I just want everything to go back to normal.

Ok, I am gonna try and be calm. I have never realized that having people by your side, people that understands your situation and what you are going through can be amazing. Actually, I already got my first herpes super power :) After my diagnosis, when I am in a hard or impossible situation, I become this really calm and logical person. Now, I can turn a situation around and to my advantage like doing a rubik cube. I can see new ways, solutions and strategies for that problem. I know that I am going to be okay. Deep down I have this voice inside me (thanks to you and many other members of this community) telling me that everything is gonna be okay and even better than before. I guess I just need time to actually believe that. I promised myself that when I am this successful person (whatever that means, doing something that nobody has ever done before or inventing something that humanity can benefit from) I am gonna go on a stage, tell everything and thank you and this community to making me a better person.

I am afraid because I read something like having herpes makes you 3 times more susceptable to hiv. I called the nurse and she told me that that is because integrity of my skin is compromised. And I had a shaved vagina and a mild BV at the time that I have contracted (so the skin was compromised right?) However the real reason that I am panicking is that the person who gave me herpes was cheated on me (straight white male). So, I figured he lied once before... There is no stopping him lying about this too. The blisters - I can manage. Flu like symptoms and this crazy nerve pain like a jellyfish stung me - I can manage. I can live in the shadows. I can cry in the dark. No problem. I can take care of myself. But hiv scare is too much. I can't sleep at night and do my job because of all this emotional stress. To make things worse, I went online and actually read what people said about dating someone with herpes. They call people like me whores (which I don't care anyway), or some other sick names (herp girl etc). And the reality is they may already have it. The person who gave me this was having no symptoms and WAS tested... That is why I haven't suspected anything. Then I learned that they don't look for herpes unless you specifically ask in a STI test. I know, I am such a cliche. I don't know what has happened to me. I know what happened... But I still can't believe that this is my life now. I feel like my identity is destroyed. It is like someone broke me with a hammer and hand me this 10000 piece puzzle that used to be me. I don't know how pieces fit together. I don't know myself anymore. By the way, Adrial, you are a saint. If I didn't find this website and watch your videos, I would probably go insane. Thank you for everything you have done.

Hi, I diagnosed with hsv2 last week. My story is I guess quite common: I noticed blisters on my vagina. They were itching really bad. I rushed to the doctor and a nurse practititoner examined me and told me that the lesions look like herpes. 3 days later I got the results... I was and still am a mess. Also, after blisters showed up, I got this crazy nerve pain and flu like symptoms (sore throat, dry eyes, and runny nose) and the second wave of blisters in old and new places. Now I am scared that I have hiv too. I gave the clinic a call and they told me that I should wait 6 weeks to get a define answer (for hiv testing). I am really scared...