Hello! I wanted to share my recent learning about H1 because it is very hard to find clear, accurate information about it even on this site! Sorry, but I have searched and even in the info handouts/downloads, it doesn't give a clear distinction between H1 and H2. I wish I had known what being diagnosed with H1 meant when I was diagnosed 4 months ago! Please post this and please know that I got this information from a trusted, expert health care provider, not from some random internet site. Scroll down for the FACTS that I have learned. Keep reading to get my full story.
So, back in April of this year I was diagnosed with HSV-1. I freaked out, like many of you, and thought that my sex life was over. I thought I was highly contagious because I kept reading about herpes being contagious even when you don't have symptoms - ie. when you are "shedding", that I was going to get multiple outbreaks, that I was a freak and dirty etc... I was also mystified how I hadn't passed it to my boyfriend because we'd had unprotected sex before I had my outbreak and before I had any lesions.
I live in a part of Canada where the health care is bad at best, where there are no STI clinics where you can go and get solid information, and where you have to wait for days to even get a simple blood test.
So when I was back home in a more civilized province recently I went to an STI clinic and had a good, long conversation with AN EXPERT: A nurse practitioner who specializes in sexually transmitted infections.
Here is what she told me about having HSV-1 ie. Herpes 1:
- 3/4 of Canadians have H1, so having it means I am a NORMAL CANADIAN (and probably just a normal human in 2013!)
- most of these people who have H1 don't even know they have it because they've never had an outbreak and most doctors don't test for H1 unless specifically asked to test for it because it is SO COMMON.
- if your parents kissed you as a child and they tended to get cold sores, they probably passed H1 to you then.
- if you have H1 you can ONLY pass it to a partner if you have a LESION (or blister, pimple, whatever you want to call those annoying things - which is all they really are - annoying little things!). H1 is unlike H2, which can pass through shedding and when you are asymptomatic. H1 cannot.
- if I have H1 and you have H1, I cannot give you MORE H1 - ie. we are equal and cannot make each other's herpes worse.
- H1 often has an initial outbreak and then MAY NEVER OCCUR AGAIN. It could, of course, but it is not like H2 which will likely have outbreaks many times in a lifespan.
- There should be no stigma around ANY KIND of Herpes - H1 or H2 in 2013!! people need to wake up and get real! A boyfriend/girlfriend's reaction to your disclosure will tell you WAY more about them than your having herpes will tell them about you!!!!
- Know the difference between H1 and H2, educate yourself and your partner, be safe, get tested and don't freak out :) You are normal!
I hope this helps someone out there and I wish someone had posted the difference between H1 and H2 for me to read several months ago.