One month post diagnoses

[Elphie623]

Guess I’m here to tell my story.

 

I got married in 2016 to my boyfriend of nearly 9 years. About two months after the wedding, I received a Facebook message from a woman that basically said my husband had been with prostitutes. Blah, blah, blah, big loud fight. Got an admission from him. He couldn’t even tell me how many there had been. He had been doing it at least once a week every week for about four years and I had no clue. Felt like a decade of my life had been wasted. He convinced me to go to therapy with him. I underwent STD testing. Everything was clean. But, they didn’t test for herpes, as I’ve learned is pretty typical for some stupid reason.

 

Break out # 1:

January of 2017. About one month after I found out what my husband was up to. I had stopped sleeping. Cluster of blisters showed up in the middle of my back. Went to the doctor. He called it shingles. Warned me that it would spread and I would have severe, intense, widespread nerve pain in my back. None of that happened. Cluster of blisters got about as big as a quarter, then shrank and healed. No pain. No spreading. Figured I got a lucky break.

 

Break out # 2:

March of 2017. By this point, I was on antidepressants, Xanax, and sleeping medication. Therapy was useless. He wasn’t talking or putting in any work. Lies still kept coming up. Felt like I was finding out more and more every day and I didn’t know the man I had shared my life with for almost 10 years. Cluster of blisters showed up on my arm. Went to my doctor. He commented “That looks like zoster... weird.” Diagnosed it as a spider bite. Gave me antibiotics, and a steroid. It took weeks to heal. Got infected after the blisters popped. More antibiotics. Big ugly scar.

 

Break out # 3:

May of 2017. By this point, I was having panic attacks at work. Receding from my friends and family. Having trouble leaving my house because “What’s the freaking point?” More depressed than I’d ever been in my life. Cluster of blisters showed up several inches away from the scar on my arm from the last set of blisters. Couldn’t get in with my doctor for a week. Sent him pictures. He called it a spider bite again. Blisters were healing by the time I saw him in person, but I was also breaking out off and on with hives. He noted it was “peculiar” and referred me to an allergist/infectious disease specialist. Appointment was set for 6 weeks later.

 

Breakout # 4:

June 2017. Husband was fighting me to quit therapy because the therapist wasn’t “fixing” me. Cluster of blisters showed up on my leg. More hives. Didn’t bother calling the doctor. Took pictures. Waited for it to heal. Saw the allergist/infectious disease specialist later that month. Showed him scars, and pictures of previous outbreaks. He tested for everything from allergies to parasites to hepatitis and HIV (but not herpes for some reason). Couldn’t find anything wrong. Encouraged me to get my stress under control. Told me to take antihistamines for the hives.

 

July of 2017, I filed for divorce and all the rashes stopped. No blisters, no hives. Slowly weened off of all the sleeping meds, antidepressants, and Xanax. Felt better than I had in months. Figured it was all just a manifestation of stress. Tried to move on with my life. Divorce finalized in December.

 

Breakout # 5:

May of 2018. Ran into some money troubles. Lots of stress at work. Cluster of blisters showed up on my chest. Hives again. Tried to make an appointment with my doctor but he couldn’t see me for a week. I was worried it would heal up before he could see it. Went to a walk in clinic. Doctor looked at it and said “Oh, yeah. That’s herpes.” I was shocked. No one else had said herpes. I’d gone through three rounds of STD testing by then (but at that time, I didn’t realize NO ONE freaking tested for herpes). It couldn’t be herpes. I told him to test it. He told me “I mean, I don’t have to. It’s herpes. It’s very distinct.” After I got loud and started shrieking in his office, he left the room and came back with a culture kit. Cut the blisters open. Swabbed it. Sent it off.

 

Boom. HSV 2. Called the ex husband and ripped his head off. He admitted he’d had break outs for years but thought it was staph. Cue verbal explosion. Ended up deleting each other on social media and blocking one another’s phone numbers. Luckily, I haven’t slept with anyone since I left him a year ago. However he has definitely been spreading the love because he’s a garbage person. Whatever. Hopefully he does the responsible thing going forward.

 

Currently taking 500mg of Valtrex daily. So far, no break outs. Medication makes me severely nauseous. Nice reminder every single morning that my husband ruined me psychologically AND physically. I hate my freaking life daily and I see no light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like I’ll always be alone because my attitude is crap, I don’t trust men, and I don’t think I’m worth anything. Especially with herpes. So, here we are.

 

I’ve literally never had an outbreak in my mouth or genitals. It’s just on my body. Don’t know how typical that is. But that’s my story. I’m super angry and I really don’t know what else to say. So, I’ll just stop typing.

 

[RegularGuy]

That's a lot of turmoil for one person. Sorry it's been so rough!

I'm not sure outbreaks away from genitals, mouth, and buttocks is very common outside congenital herpes from birth. This would be the first time I had heard of it, personally.

 

I know it's really redundant to say, but you have to try to let the anger go and look forward to the future. There are many reasons to look back on how pointlessly painful past events have been, but the reason to avoid dwelling on it is the most important: To participate in your present, and to decide your future. Those two things are far more valuable than looking back and feeling hurt and rage. And however satisfying it might be to plot vengeance, it only makes the hurt and anger prolonged.

Bad things happen to good people. It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't happen for a real reason (outside just circumstance). There are still millions of great experiences waiting for you to be ready, and they amount to a fulfilling future. A life you do deserve.

 

[Elphie623]

Yeah, the doctors said it’s weird that it’s on my body too. They think that’s why it took them so long to diagnose it. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be and therefore wasn’t on anyone’s radar. I think the phrase was “not typical, but not totally unheard of.”

 

I’m not plotting vengeance or anything like that. I’m just pissed off. Prior to this, if someone I was trying to date was like “Oh, btw, I have herpes.” I would have deleted their number and walked away. Point blank. Now that I have it, I wouldn’t blame a single solitary person for doing the same to me. At this point in time, I don’t see a future to look towards. I’d rather not get attached to someone just to have them walk away from me when I disclose. And the thought of putting another person at risk of catching it, no matter how small, makes me want to throw up. I can’t even imagine being on the receiving end of that angry conversation. I’m just mad about the whole thing.

[BethannD]

I had the same thing. Just at the base of my spine for the last 15 years, started when I was married. I was told it was zoster and sent to a dermatologist. Getting a divorce now, as spouse left me for another woman two years ago. I found out while in a recent relationship that it was HSV2 and told my partner immediately. I think he's left the relationship. Just said he needed time to himself but my guess he's letting me down easy. I take propolis (bee pollen) and lysine to prevent outbreaks. I am in my fifties and feel like we all have something at our age. 25 percent of the population has HSV2. I think it's more common than diabetes.

[RegularGuy]

@Elphie623

It seems like you're going through some serious inner turmoil. Many of us H+ peeps can relate to that.

You would probably benefit from working on appreciating yourself more. To me, it seems like you have accepted your situation, but that's only one stage of the whole process. You can find your admiration for yourself again, and see yourself the way you deserve to, as a valuable, desireable, worthy person.

Find the things you like about yourself and give yourself permission to appreciate those qualities.

You are right that another person's decisions are their own, and if they decide not to start a relationship with you, you shouldn't be mad about it. But there are lots of people waiting to meet someone like you, and a medical diagnosis isn't going to stop the right person from falling for you. Only vowing to take yourself off the market forever is going to stop that from happening, and that would be an absolute shame to rob them and yourself of.