this is funny, back in my youth, i would laugh my butt off everytime i saw a herpes commercial and now the laughing is over, but if you watch the commercial for one it seems like she's having a lot of fun LOL.

Second the whole point of the commercial seems to be all about outbreaks and i've been living with this for three months now and the outbreaks are the LEAST of my concerns. So why have a commercial that focuses on what the problem of herpes isn't.

I don't know about you guys and gals but the important focus of herpes is the fact it's contagious, for what seems like ALL the time. Even on the commercial it says, it MAY be possible even on medication to spread herpes, but it doesn't say anything about WHEN. Before i got this, everything i heard was you were only contagious during outbreaks and my X's doctor even told my X that he wouldn't be afraid to sleep with her. It's driving me nuts.

But yanno that commercial is hilarious and the focus of the commercial and what seems like the medical industry surrounding herpes is all wrong. All i can hope and pray for is that they come out with a vaccine for people who don't have Herpes. that would be the blessing of a lifetime, because while it doesn't change much for us people with herpes at least we know once someone is vaccinated they have the antibodies we have without having the disease itself and all those things we miss doing with our siginifigant others will be possible.

i know i'll be celebrating...it's really a brilliant idea, having the antibodies without having the disease. Still think the focus of the commercial is all wrong.

I'm glad that your outbreaks are not too much to be concerned about for you. I understand what you are saying, but for me, with outbreaks more than days than not in any given month, it's impossible to even worry about giving it to someone else because the outbreaks just seemed to remind me what a terrible person i was for contracting the virus. I cried a lot, stopped eating, shut out my friends, etc. Once I got the outbreaks under control, i could see it in perspective and begin to think about getting involved with someone and all the guilt that caused, but being physically well really improve my ability to handle this better and I couldn't have done that without suppressive therapy.

I couldn't have done that without suppressive therapy.

Okay well i'm sorry if somehow i managed to say in my post how unimportant suppressive therapy is. I take supressive therapy every day so i'm not putting it down, and i wasn't saying it isn't important either. You would think the priority with herpes would be not giving it to someone else. Yeah my outbreaks bother me but not enough to want to blow my head off, when i was first diagnosed i wanted to blow my head off at the fact i would be contagious for life and never be able to have sex again. Luckily for me i've come to terms with it. I've managed to go three months without sex and yes i wake up every morning with nightmares about not being able to have sex and i deal with it every day of my life and i'm sorry if the last thing on my mind are the outbreaks. Yes i came to terms with it and i'm dealing and i wouldn't dream of doing anything so stupid as suicide because of Herpes.

I'd probably be breaking out a lot more often if it wasn't for supressive therapy so hip hip hooray. It still doesn't change the fact that all the things i used to know and love in my life, all the small things that i took for granted, all the things people without herpes take for granted are NOW gone from my life, and until a vaccine or cure comes around, are things i will never, ever have again.

Maybe you haven't reached a point in your life where your with someone you love and they love you, and you can't even spoon with them without your clothes on because your skin "might" rub against thiers and they might catch this. Where you can't even take a shower with the person you love and hold them because there might be skin to skin contact. Where the person who loves you can't even touch you or kiss you or affectionetly(sp) touch you anywhere in that region because of skin to skin contact and they might get herpes on whatever area of thier skin touches yours. Basically i can touch the woman i love anywhere i want as long as i don't touch her with a hand that might've touched me in the boxer area. I most certainly can't have any kind of s*x. Heck i might as well be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of my life, it'd be about the same thing. But Nooooooooo they don't mention any of THAT in the comercial do they ? go figure.

In the commercial it says her days are now hers, thanks to supressive therapy, yeah they're hers alright. hers and hers alone. I could say so much more about this but i really don't want to get banned and if i spoke my mind completely on this subject even using completley clean language i'd most likely be permanently banned LOL :nono: so i'll behave :D

I definitely hear what you're saying about the spooning thing, I miss that too! But I have done a lot of the other things you mentioned like showering, all kinds of sex, etc. without too much of a problem (except as you say, monitoring which hand does what!). But regular sexual activity hasn't really changed that much. No, we can't be all crazy like before I had this and do stuff without any concept of having to consider transmission (is that what bothers you most?).

But having the love and support of someone who doesn't consider having to be aware of transmission issues a big deal really helps.

How long have you had the virus? I was really worried about giving it to other people for the first few years, but after two long term relationships with guys who never got it from me has helped me to relax.

(This is the first time I have ever had the opportunity to talk to someone else about it who actually has it, so no pressure to continue this conversation, just if you feel like talking.)

I've had the virus since January and even though the woman i love, loves me, her test came up negative, it was my most recent X who gave it to me. We don't do anything because she can't risk getting it, because of she did it would ruin her relationship with her boyfriend. Which is where it gets complicated. I love her, she loves me, she wants to marry me, i want to marry her, but it would never work because of the age difference, even though you've never seen two people so in love. Of course she loves her boyfriend but not like she loves me. Someone might think oh well she's evil because she's not being faithful to her boyfriend, well she surely is now, except for what we CAN do and she isn't afraid of catching it because we both know how to be very , very careful but there is always the chance and i don't want to be responsible for ruining her relationship, even though more than anything we'd both rather just get married and forget her boyfriend all together. Like i said it's so complicated you wouldn't even believe it.

I just know that your most contagious during the first six months to a year of getting this, till your system gets a handle on it, supression therapy or not.
That's why i just keep hoping and praying for a vaccine, because then i can go back to enjoying the life i knew before i got this...

Hey serial, first i wanted to think you for responding to my last post since you were the only person. NOT that my feelings are hurt ( :nono: ) but any way I use to laugh at that same commercial also and now i feel REAL stupid. I dont feel bad because it IS a funny commercial to me even now. Even the guys voice is "interesting" to say the least. BUT any way, i keep hearing everyone talk about a herpes vaccine and cream and stuff but when i do a search on the topic all i find is failed results. Or all the articles i find are old and outdated and dont really help me much, so has anyone heard anything about a date on that? Or of any kind of succesful test results? And I already know it will be a guest because when they say something will be out in 2004 it comes out in 2014 because of the FDA so called "testing" it while they push out drugs to further their income. THAT HOWEVER is a different subject, so any one who has some feed back on that please let me know...

I think it was sunshineahead or something like that had a whole bunch of info about it and even posted a link. said she was also involved in a program of some kind for a vaccine they were currently testing, just look for some older posts by her.