A freak twist of fate! Could this have happened? Did I catch herpes off a toilet seat??

[Aurora_Mae]

So I spent the last two weeks convinced I caught herpes offt boyfriend who never showed symptoms or knew he has it. I broke out on my butt shortly after (a few days) engaging in anal sex with him. Doctor confirms I am hsv-2 positive and says judging by the severity of my outbreak this is my FIRST contact with the virus, that it is highly unliky

I've had it dormant for years.

 

Here's the twist! We had sex last night, I just finished my valaacyclovir treatment and blisters healed.... And we were sure he gave it to me as doctor suggested. Blisters were on my butt anyway so thought we were good to go....

 

BANG today, he has herpes blisters. 24 hours and I've never seen a mark on him in the past. I spent the last 2 weeks being angry at him only to discover I gave it to him!! He's not mad says he knew the risk... We are both shocked and dumbfounded.

 

Here's the thing, after anal sex I thought I had an anal fissure (which later I chalked to herpes) I was using olive oil to lube things up in the bathroom at work. One of my coworkers is an admitted 20 years with herpes and complained she thought an outbreak was coming on.... Could I have caught it off her???? I'm not blaming her, it's my own fault.... Just trying to understand this virus.

 

Could I of had it for years and just be having an outbreak now?? Primary, for the first time?? Could I have caught it offt boyfriend, then because my outbreak is still active, passed the active virus back to him??!

 

So confused..... And blown away.

[KLB]

No...not possible to get off a toilet seat. And just because you have an outbreak on your butt doesn't mean you aren't shedding from your genitals. You mentioned having sex with him when you had blisters so more than likely he caught it from you. Anytime you have blustyou shouldn't have sex until they're healed.

 

Were you with anyone else before him that you could have caught it from?

[Aurora_Mae]

I've been married for 8 years before him, and never had an outbreak, so we were certain I caught it off him.

[Aurora_Mae]

And my blisters were healed when we had sex..... But it is my primary outbreak (as told by my doctor who thinks this is my very first contact with the virus due to the severity), so yes, I was most likely shedding.... Although I said didn't think it would matter since my doctor stated very clearly I would have caught it off him. I haven't had sex with anyone other than him in a year.

[Aurora_Mae]

Oh and my coworker with herpes also got me the cup of olive oil to stick up my split anus.... Sorry for being crude..... And as I said I'm not blaming anyone and the chances are very small I know.... But I honestly don't know how I got this as I am having conflicted advice fromy doctor.... Who says he gave it to me, and his doctor who says I gave it to him.....

[WCSDancer2010]

1) There is absolutely NO way you would have got it off the toilet seat. The virus can't live outside the body and if it could, and you put your butt cheeks on the seat, it couldn't travel to your anus. Period ;)

 

2) I've had a patient who had Herpes for at least 30 years before her first OB - she's been married that long and they are monogamous ... so you *could* have carried it all this time from your marriage, or before.

 

3) If your BF had had sex with someone else within the past 4-6 months he may have tested H- ... it takes that long for the antibodies to get going enough to be detected in a test.

 

Remind me how you were diagnosed. Visual? Swab? Blood test???

[Aurora_Mae]

Let me rephrase as I was in a panick when I wrote the first message.... I don't think I caught it off a toilet seat. What I'm wondering is if there is a small chance I may have caught it from sticking a lubed finger up my cracked butt (injured from anal sex) before a bowel movement, from a dish of olive oil that was retrieved from the kitchen I work at (we are servers) by a girl who admitted the day before she was having an outbreak. Who also handled the dish and demonstrated how to discreetly walk to washroom with the cup so no one would see.... As I was embarassed to stick it up my bum. And also had just used the washroom prior to handling the dish. And may or may not have washed her hands.... Once again it's my own fault but would be nice to know if it's a possibility.

[WCSDancer2010]

Well, your question title was could you get it from a toilet seat ... ;)

 

Uh ... no... ONCE AGAIN ... the virus cannot live outside the body for any amount of time!!! And he/she will have it on the genitals, NOT their hands ... if they didn't wash their hands, I'd worry a lot more about other things like E-coli which can live outside the body a LOT longer.

 

You HAVE to get this... you got this from some sort of sexual activity. Period. If you want to keep trying to figure out who got it from who, you both need a blood test. It takes 4-6 months for an IGG test to come up positive after exposure. If one is H+ and the other is H- on that test, that tells you who got it first. If you are both H-, one of you has most likely been sexually active with someone else who had it in the last 4 months. :/

 

AND, in the end, you may just have to stop worrying about who got it from who ... sometimes life just throws us a curve ball and we will never know where it came from :(

 

 

[Aurora_Mae]

He hasn't been with anyone other than me in 9 years.... I do trust him, we work together, and spend all out time together out of work, every night, so there's no way he cheated and have been exclusive for a year. Before that I was married to one guy for 8 years, so I would of had to have carried this dormant all this time I guess.

 

My next question is.... Does this mean my body already has immunity? Would I already have antibodies even if the virus was dormant in my nerve ganglia?

[WCSDancer2010]

You may - again, you need the IGG blood test to tell you that. If you have carried it 8 years, you will have the antibodies, even tho you didn't have an OB .... and it *could* be your BF that was the silent carrier. AND, after 9 years, then, and knowing he couldn't/wouldn't cheat, does it REALLY matter who got it from who then???

 

It's unfortunate that neither of you were tested and never got the chance to try to protect the other, but now it is what it is .... if you are committed to each other, and you both have it, well, after your initial OB's get under control (usually 6 mo to a yr) it likely won't affect your love life too much .... in fact, OB's give us a great opportunity to learn other ways to be intimate, so it can IMPROVE your love life :)

 

(((HUGS)))

[Aurora_Mae]

Your right, it doesn't matter.... I guess we are both just so blown away and shocked because none of it makes sense and we both appear to have primary symptoms.... Under the given circumstances we both appear to have caught it off the other. And every possibility at every angle puts us in the "unlikely" or "little to no possibility" category..... (Especially since his symptoms showed up less than 24 hours after sexual contact)

 

I'm starting to come to terms with it, he had his blood test done before we had sex(waiting on results) , and I was confirmed by a swab. I'm going to request a blood test from the sexual health clinic when I go Wednesday... Just to see if I have the antibodies... But in the end it doesn't matter. Again just so mind boggled as to how this happened..... But have to learn to let go. And that is the hardest part.

 

I'm thankful for this site, and for you putting up with my ranting. And I'm thankful that unlike many I have a friend at work 20 years with herpes, that can support me, and now all 3 of us (as I work with my boyfriend too) have a secret herpes club and we are literally all walking around in discomfort scratching at our hips, whiny and sick.

[WCSDancer2010]

LOL regarding your "club" ... but if people would just TRUST and confide in a friend, you'd find that most if not all people would have plenty of people that could join the "club" around you and you wouldn't be alone in this....

 

That's part of my mission, to get people to be ok with being out .... or at least talking more to those close to them about it. It's the only way to slay the stigma ... talking about it like adults takes the power away from the stigma .... and puts it back into our hands ;)

 

(((HUGS)))

[WCSDancer2010]

@Powturns Edit: (this was in answer to a now-edited response that stated that H *could* live on a surface and could therefore *if all the stars aligned and every single thing lined up perfectly* one *could* get Herpes from a non-sexual contact with a surface.

 

1) Glad you are such an authority on the subject. Perhaps you should start contributing more often seeing as you know more than someone who had lived with this for 35 yrs and read plenty on the subject.

 

2) There is NO WAY the OP could have got H from the toilet seat ON HER ANUS. Sorry but the virus can't jump around like that. Unless she was rubbing her anus around all over the seat.... SMH

 

3) Yes, wrestlers get H1 .. tho it's much more likely they got it from the person they are wrestling with... if their opponent happened to have a lesion while they are wrestling then they could well rub (skin to skin... which is how one gets Herpes) against the other person and pass it to them. I very much doubt that if someone just rolled around on the mat they would get it... yes, the virus might be present and alive, but generally there would need to be a decent viral load, in one area, for the person to get it... and likely their immune system would be compromised.

 

4) Yes - in a LAB, the virus might live for more than a couple minutes.... but again, in order to actually catch it off of another object, too many things have to line up - live virus, significant enough quantity to actually overwhelm the body before it can fight it off (we have ALL likely been exposed to small amounts of the H virus many times...kissing someone, sex, etc which is why some have a small amount of the antibodies... because they have managed to fight it off before it took hold), compromised immune system and/or a cut or other way for the virus to gain entry, never mind that the environment would have to stay "perfect" to keep the virus alive. H loves a warm, moist environment ...

 

5) Unless the OP's friend handled their genitals, then the oil container, without washing their hands, and then handed it right to her, it's highly unlikely the virus would be present. I'm pretty sure that you can do all the research you want, and you will not come across anything that will tell you that you can get GENITAL herpes from anything but SEX (oral or genital). Until you can show that to me, I will continue to tell people they can't get GENITAL herpes from a toilet seat ..... and that the odds are very, VERY slim that they could get "Herpes gladiatorum" on their butt cheeks....

 

I get your point, but we are dealing with reality. It's like saying you can get HIV from the toilet seat (which is what caused so much of the initial fear and stigma against folks with HIV) ... yet to this day there isn't one doctor or researcher that will tell you that you actually can get either from a toilet seat. So please, THINK before you post. We don't need to have everyone on here bleaching everything that they touch and being afraid to live their lives .....

 

If YOU can come up with ONE confirmed case of GENITAL herpes acquired from a surface, I will happily retract all my posts where I have said that you can't pass it on via the toilet seat/bathing, towels/whatever.

 

Good day...

[WCSDancer2010]

Sorry folks for my rather pointed response to the (now deleted) remark.... so let me clarify a few things here:

 

The point that @Powturns made was that H *could* survive on a surface for some time. Meaning that, if every part of a scenario lined up, there *might* be a one-in-a-million chance of getting H from a toilet seat. Or maybe one in 10 million... who knows?

 

All I can tell you is that every single Doctor and Researcher that I have ever read/listened to about H will tell you that you won't get Genital H from a toilet seat (because that part of the body is not in contact with the seat) and that in very rare circumstances, someone might get it from a wrestling mat or (even less likely) from a surface in a gym. This is because the rooms are warm, and there is a lot of moisture (sweat) that might allow the virus to not only live outside the body for a short while, but that *enough* virus might be present for you to pick it up on your arms/legs/whatever is in contact with that surface. (This is why you are asked to clean off the equipment when you are done with the sterilizing agents they provide). Odds are it would get in through an open wound if you did get it. Most "Herpes gladiatorum" is found in wrestlers... from an active blister on the opponents' skin (again, skin to skin contact in a warm, moist environment) ... yes, it *may* be possible they got it from the mat, but I'd wager that the opponent is the one who gave it to them.

 

There is a point where you have to look at your "research" (where everything is in a perfect environment) and then at the circumstances of real life and see it it applies. I for one have never seen any studies that have proven that genital H is passed by anything but sex acts/contact with genitals/mouth/etc from a H+ person. If anyone ever can prove otherwise, I will change my advise. Until that time, I am sticking with what *I* know to be true from researching and living with H for 35 yrs.

 

Peace out friends!