HikingGirl

Terri Warren cites the references in her book (I’ll PM you with the details).

I get it, Sonny. I have HSV 1 and 2 and my ex-husband of 15 years never got it. I found out after the divorce and he tested negative, which meant I picked it up before we met and I was simply unaware of my status for all of those years. No one knows why transmission happens with some and not others, but our situation is far more common than you’d think!

The IgG index values won’t tell you how long you’ve had the virus. For HSV1 I was at 49-something, and for HSV2 it was 3.27. Although I was diagnosed just two years ago, I know I acquired HSV at least 18-25 years earlier (because my ex-husband rested negative).

No, I only use it when I have symptoms. I’ve only had to use it once or twice in the past year since starting acyclovir, as that has done wonders for the itching for me.

I think tea tree oil is awesome for itching. You *must* dilute it though. Mix a drop or two with either some coconut oil or a wet cotton square.

I’m just over a quarter of the way through it and have already decided it’s well worth the money (to me). It’s work.....so know that going in. This is not something you just read and feel better after. It requires a fair amount of thought and journaling. It has really helped me to change my perspective for the better. I’m in the middle of moving at the moment so I haven’t looked at it for some time, but really look forward to getting back to it when I’m settled since I’d like to try dating again this year.

That makes a lot of sense, @Jack101. Any thoughts on why the prevalence of oral HSV1 among younger individuals is going down?

You’re in good company. I live in a big city and the doctors here don’t seem to know much about HSV either! :)

IMHO, I don’t consider your comment a trigger—just a compliment. For all we know, his distance is totally unrelated to the comment.

You’re very welcome. This forum is such a wonderful community. And every time I post, I think it helps *me* just as much (if not more) than anyone reading it. :)

@dumbdumb.... Your kids will not be labeled for life. Don’t kiss them if you have a cold sore, but otherwise, no additional precautions are needed. Chances are, they’ll get oral HSV1 from someone, someday (if they don’t already have it) and life will continue to be very normal for them. Do not assume you have genital HSV1. The symptoms you’re experiencing could be lots of different things. Unfortunately, we can’t make a diagnosis here on these forums. Go see a different doctor. If yours can’t figure out what is causing the discomfort, a different doctor will. The reason you don’t see cold sores very often is because most people with oral HSV1 don’t get cold sores or any other symptoms. The majority of adults already have oral HSV1, and only a third of them will ever have a cold sore. This means that it is extremely likely that even though your ex doesn’t get cold sores, he could still already have oral HSV1. For that matter, you don’t know that you got HSV from a previous partner. For all you know you could have gotten HSV from your ex-husband and you simply never got symptoms until now. It happens all the time. Or you may have picked it up as a kid. You said the impact of your diagnosis was primarily psychological. Getting educated on the facts about herpes (this link is a great start: https://westoverheights.com/herpes/the-updated-herpes-handbook/) really helps. The herpes virus does not care who you are, who you slept with, and what your marital status was when you slept with them. It’s a common virus which has been around for thousands of years and is simply looking for a place to live. Just like the common cold, the flu, or the chicken pox doesn’t make you dirty, neither does herpes. That’s the stigma talking—not the facts. All of us learned that stigma from friends, family, television, movies, religion, advertisements, and other influences when we were growing up. It’s hard work to un-learn it, but it is possible and I promise you it is worth the effort. Finally, as someone who is now three years divorced from a man who “has a temper,” please reconsider your plans to reconcile with your ex. Two years is just enough time to start forgetting why you split in the first place and how miserable it was to be together. You deserve better.

Welcome, @daisy215. I’m about two years away from my own diagnosis, but I could really relate to what you wrote....it was like having flashbacks! Everything you’re feeling is very common, especially early on. What helped me most was learning about HSV—including reading these forums a lot—self care (exercise, eating well, doing activities I enjoy, journaling, a few sessions with my therapist, etc.), and time. I also had an opportunity to take a 10-week workshop last year about shame resilience which was a huge help. Aside from telling my therapist, my ex-husband, and the guy I was casually seeing at the time of my diagnosis, I only told one friend. She was nice about it, and didn’t make me feel worse, but I don’t think she really knew how to best be supportive or empathetic either. I’m still glad I told her, as it was a relief to tell someone I trust and have them still treat me exactly the same. There are plenty of people, including some very close friends and pretty much all of my family, who I would never tell in a million years. My symptoms were always very mild (I had no idea I had both strains for 20+ years before my diagnosis), but I started taking Valtrex right away because I was pretty freaked and felt I needed to DO something. Valtrex really didn’t do anything for me except give me frequent zingers (tingling prodrome symptoms). I stopped for six months, and then tried acyclovir. I wanted to see if I could find an antiviral I tolerated well in case I started a new relationship. About two months after starting acyclovir, I suddenly had none of the itching that I had always attributed to yeast infections (no zingers either). So even though I’m not dating (although I hope to once I get moved and sell my house this spring), I continue taking it because I love being itch free! I haven’t experienced any side effects and with insurance, pay $20 for a three-month supply of acyclovir. (It was $50 for Valtrex, but I think you’ll find prices really vary widely by insurance.) It’s really a personal decision. If you’re not having troublesome symptoms and you’re not concerned about transmission, there’s really no reason to take them.

I feel like a complete animal. Who does this? I’m having flashbacks to the time I was trying to teach my dog the command to lay down. He caught giardia during puppy kindergarten and had to drop out, so I thought I’d teach him myself. I had read that if I taught him to sit first, then I should gently pull his front legs toward me to lower him to the ground. He didn’t like that so much, LOL, and snapped at me. He was afraid. You were afraid. And you are neither the first nor last person to tell a lie because you were afraid. When I wrote my Herpes Manifesto (you can find it by clicking on my username), I wrote this about being afraid: “Most of all, my diagnosis makes me feel afraid. I’m afraid if people knoew I had herpes, they would treat me like a leper—afraid to talk to me, afraid to be seen with me, or afraid just to know me. I’m afraid of being exposed and losing the respect of my peers or even my job. I’m afraid of being judged, labeled, rejected, and invisible. I’m afraid that no one will love me.” That was the lowest point of my life, and it took a lot of work to pull myself out of that hole. Given our dependence upon other people for survival, the fear of rejection can be a *big* deal. If our bodies sense a threat as a really, really big deal, then our amygdala takes over and we dive into a fight, flight or freeze response and we literally lose the ability to make an objective, rational decision. You don’t have to be facing a lion to experience this, and I’m not trying to excuse all bad behavior. I guess I’m just trying to help you have some compassion toward yourself. The pain will help you to not repeat this scenario in the future. A little self-compassion will help you move forward.

That’s so awesome to hear! Thanks for sharing the good news with us! :)

Congrats on the successful disclosure! Condoms and daily antivirals will reduce the chances of transmission (if you’re not taking antivirals, you need to be on them for about 5-7 days before having sex for them to be effective). Also, start paying really close attention to your body and abstain from intercourse if you feel any prodrome symptoms or think you may be developing an outbreak. This is especially important since outbreaks and asymptomatic shedding tends to happen more frequently when the virus is new and your body is still adjusting to it. There is no 100% foolproof way to prevent transmission. There will always be a risk, but that’s also true of practically any worthwhile activity. Have fun! ;-)

Welcome, @FLGator25. If you’ve tested positive for HSV2, it means you have the virus. Many doctors erroneously tell people it just means they’ve been exposed. Sadly, many doctors are not well educated about HSV because the line about just having been exposed is simply not true. You either have the virus or you don’t. It’s also not true that you need to have an outbreak to get tested. 89% of people with HSV either don’t have symptoms or their symptoms are so mild they’re mistaken for things like yeast infections, razor burn, or jock itch. Blood tests pick up most of these infections. You can absolutely have HSV with no symptoms *and* you can still transmit the virus to others even if you have no noticeable symptoms. At the same time, transmission is not a given (my ex of 16 years didn’t get HSV from me when I was unaware I had it during our relationship). (If you haven’t seen this handbook written by a clinician and herpes expert, I highly recommend it: https://westoverheights.com/herpes/the-updated-herpes-handbook/) Now since there are a ton of questions on this forum about diagnosis, I think a really good place for you to start is to request a copy of your lab work and make sure you had the right tests done. This is especially important since you don’t have obvious symptoms. There are a lot of doctors using outdated and inaccurate tests, and there are people who are diagnosed as positive with the right kind of test, but not realizing that lower index values can sometimes be false positives. In order to move forward, I think having some definitive answers on your own diagnosis would be helpful. I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling with your current situation regarding your girlfriend. We’re all just going through life doing the best we can. Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we mess up in a major, life-altering kind of way that can’t ever be fixed. I hope your girlfriend comes around after she’s had some time to process what has happened. If that’s not the case, all we can do is learn from our mistakes, as painful as they may be, and move forward. {{{hugs}}}

Have your daughter request copies of her lab work so you can look at the results with your own eyes to confirm exactly which tests were done and what the index values were. I’ve only heard PCR referred to as a type of swab test, but I’m no medical professional either. The most common blood tests are the IgM (older and notoriously inaccurate) and the IgG (pretty accurate with HSV2 but produces a lot of false negatives with HSV1). Here’s what you’re looking for: If she had a PCR swab test done and it was positive, that test is definitive and it will also tell her the type. If she had an IgM blood test done, ignore those results entirely and ask for an IgG. If she had an IgG and the index value for each type was below 0.9, she does not have herpes. If it was between 0.9 and 1.1, that’s a gray area and would warrant another test in a few months. Index values above 1.1 are often diagnosed as positive, but as others have mentioned, there are a fair number of false positives for index values between 1.1 and 3.5. If your daughter’s IgG index value was between 1.1 and 3.5, there are two possibilities. First, it could be a false positive and you’d need to have the western blot test done to know for sure (it’s a more sensitive blood test only done at the University of Washington—you don’t have to go there, you’d just need to send a blood sample there. My IgG index value for HSV2 was 3.27 and the western blot confirmed I do have HSV2. Others have had similar experiences and found out they really did not have HSV.). The second possibility is that it’s a new infection and her body hasn’t produced enough antibodies yet to test positive on a blood test. If that’s the case, you could retest at 16 weeks post-exposure and see if the numbers change.

<3!

^^^^Ditto. Talk to him about it. Maybe it was triggering, but maybe it was something totally unrelated.

@Pinky, have you ever had the spot on your arm swabbed to see if it’s really herpes? To answer you other question, yes, you can transmit HSV even if you have no symptoms. It’s called asymptomatic sheddding...when the virus exits your body without producing noticeable symptoms. (Better explained in this handbook: https://westoverheights.com/herpes/the-updated-herpes-handbook/) I’m close to your age and am also surprised I never gave HSV1 or HSV2 to my ex-husband when we were together for 16 years (my surprise diagnosis came after we were divorced). As for why he didn’t get it, there are lots of possible explanations, but no way to know for sure. Maybe he had a fabulous immune system. Maybe my body doesn’t shed the virus very often. Maybe our timing was just really, really lucky and we never had sex while I was shedding. It’s true that many doctors are not very well educated about HSV.

Welcome, @hi123. If you haven’t already done some research on basic facts about herpes, I strongly recommend the may resources available on this site, as well as a short handbook written by a herpes expert here: https://westoverheights.com/herpes/the-updated-herpes-handbook/ Here’s what we know.....we can’t change other people or control how they might react to a disclosure. What we can do is educate ourselves about HSV, continue to live an awesome life doing the things we love to do, and continue supporting each other. There are lots of great success stories here on this forum, including both casual hookups and committed relationships. Some guys will walk away. Others won’t. We’re not being fair to ourselves if we assume everyone we meet will think we are dirty. That’s just the stigma talking. Once you’ve spent some time over in the success stories category of these forums, you’ll see what I mean. :)

I once heard Adrial say, when asked when is the right time to disclose, to ask yourself, “Do I trust this person with my vulnerability?” If you haven’t met this woman yet, I also think it would be totally fair to wait until you meet to see if there’s chemistry in person. I know you want to be considerate to her with your timing. Just don’t let that affect what would otherwise be the right timing for *you*.

You really can’t deduce anything from what you’ve described. It will be a long and stressful wait for you, but the only thing that is going to produce an answer is him getting tested.

When it feels really scary to be honest with someone, it usually means it’s especially important to do so. I know you’re worried he may have a panic attack and not want to continue the relationship. That’s entirely possible. The only thing worse than not having him in your life is not being able to sleep at night because you’re not being honest with yourself and losing respect for yourself. {{{hugs}}}

Hi, @Groot2013. Just because you had sex with someone who has HSV, does not mean that you have it or would have gotten it from him. By six weeks post-exposure, 70% of those infected would have a positive test result (over 1.1). It’s not until you get to 16 weeks post exposure that 97% of those infected will test positive. The test is never going to be zero. It’s just the way the test is done. The IgG test isn’t testing for the virus, it’s testing for antibodies that your body produces in response to the virus. Everyone infected with HSV makes antibodies at different rates. For peace of mind, go ahead and retest at 16 weeks. As of right now, it looks like the odds are in your favor that you did not get HSV from this previous partner.