Okay, here's my story...

Since late January, I've had the following symptoms;

1.Burning sensation of the genital area (which has in the last week stopped),
2.The odd red spot down stairs (nothing the has turned into a blister),
3.A body rash (on my hands, arms, legs and chest that comes and goes),
4.A clear discharge from down below and a slight pain when weeing.

The way all this started was due to a sus spot on my lip that was either a pimple or a cold sore. As I never had cold sores before, I took the risk that it was just a pimple and spent a night kissing my girlfriend. Later that night, she performed unprotected oral sex on me. The next morning, this "burning sensation" started down stairs. Over the next few days, I developed a cold sore for the first ever time in my life. My girl friend has never had cold sores, and to date, still doesn't.

I've been checked by 2 GPs and one specialist. Each time, I conveyed my fears of this being herpes. All of them told me, from what they can see, it's not herpes and that I shouldn't worry.

I've had a blood and urine test to check for a number of STDs. All have come back negative.

I have since late Jan I've had 3 cold sore outbreaks.

After all that... here are my questions:

Is it possible for genital herpes to take this long to show up?

Can the virus be spread by someone before they have an initial out break??

If you have a genital herpes out break, does that mean you'll have a cold sore out break too?


Any and all feed back is welcomed. This is really stressing me out, as you could imagine.

Thanks.

Hi Scared77,

I'm sorry to hear you're going through this. It's always hard when you're getting symptoms and you don't know what's causing them. It usually just takes a bit of time to solve the riddle, so hang in there.

The rashes that come and go don't sound like herpes to me. (Bear in mind I'm not a health professional though.) The genital symptoms *might* be herpes as one possibility. By cold sores I assume you mean blisters around your mouth?

If your blood tests are coming back negative, it's possible that you contracted it just recently and your body is still building up enough antibodies to be detected by the test. I would think 2 months would be long enough to show results, but it's possible your system is just slow to produce antibodies.

Be sure your doc is ordering a *type-specific* blood test, as they tend to be more sensitive and accurate. Western Blot is considered the best, but can also be expensive too, if you're paying out of pocket for it. The blood tests can take up to 16 weeks after initial symptoms, before you can trust a negative result not to be a false negative.

If the blood test is showing negative now though, and it turns out you do have herpes (shown from a later blood test or from a swab test), that would mean you'd picked it up recently. It's possible for herpes to stay dormant for years without producing symptoms (yet still being contagious), but if you've had it for a long time it should have shown up in your blood test by now.

BTW, has your gf had a blood test done? This might be helpful for both of you to know her status or to establish a baseline. Again, be sure it's a *type-specific* test.

Could your gf have given it to you that night after kissing and then oral sex? Again, I'm not a health professional but it doesn't sound very likely. Possible but not likely. The burning can certainly be a symptom of herpes but it usually takes a couple of days at least for symptoms to appear.

If you're still getting blisters or sores (in any location), get your doc to do a swab culture on a fresh one (within 24-48 hours of its appearance). Swab cultures are notorious for false negative results (meaning you could still have it, even though it comes back negative) but it might still be worth the effort. I believe there's a type of swab test called a PCR DNA test that's supposed to be much more sensitive than the old style swab tests, so you might talk to your doc about getting this done.

I wonder if you might have herpes in one or two locations but something else (like a yeast infection) in others? Just a thought.

To answer your questions about OB locations: Herpes will stay in the same general area (e.g., genitals or mouth typically) and won't migrate from one to the other without outside help (like touching a sore in one place and then immediately touching another place where there's a break in the skin to provide an entry point for the virus). In that sense it's possible that by kissing your gf and then her performing oral sex on you, it might have transferred from your mouth to your genitals, but as I said, it sounds unlikely unless the time between one activity and the next was virtually immediate. And getting herpes in one area will not spontaneously produce outbreaks in another area; it stays in the area where you were infected unless given external help.

Most of the population has herpes type-1 in the form of cold sores, which they usually get in childhood from non-sexual contact with family members and friends. It's possible you could have picked up the cold sores from someone else through a "friendly kiss." It wouldn't arise spontaneously in either you or your gf without one of you getting it from someone else at some time.

Anyway, I hope that helps a bit. Good luck! I hope it turns out to be something else. Let us know how you make out.

TheOneInFour

Another thought might be you're just being a bit OCD about your health. I'm a bit OCD myself about my health and I can tell you from personal experience that I've put myself through a number of disease scares over the past 10 years or so. I've mentally created cancer, ALS, Parkinson's, HIV, and MS to name a few. (Needless to say I never actually had a one of them.) I've also got some "herpes-like" symptoms myself right now so I can relate to how you're feeling about herpes.

Only you will know if you tend to be a bit OCD about things. If you're not then disregard my comments. However, in the event you are, I think it's important to remember that you've done the testing and seen doctors and everything is negative to date; accordingly, the likelihood you've got herpes is probably slim. This is not to say you're not having real health problems, it's just that it's probably not herpes related.

For the sake of your own mental health you might want to get tested again for herpes at the four month mark just to rule it out completely.

TS, what does OCD mean? I think you've used it once before and I wasn't sure what you meant.

1in4

Ooops, sorry about not defining my terms.

ocd=obsessive compulsive disorder. It affects people who have it in varying degrees. Most people won't admit to being ocd, but deep down people know if they have those tendencies or not. I think we've all known people who we consider to be a bit hypochdriacal and those who don't get bothered by anything at all. It's more a spectrum than a black and white thing.

ocd is not a big deal, just something to be aware of. In this persons case I thought it might be more psychosomatic since they've been to the doctor, been tested and still are concerned about herpes. Not to say it couldn't be herpes but it doesn't seem likely give the amount of testing done and that more than one doctor has looked at it.

Thanks 1in4 and toughspot,

Your advice means alot to me. As each day moves on, I tend to feel better, and not worse. I'm unsure if this is a good thing or not. Just incase, I've been taking garlic, vit C and zinic tablets.

I don't believe I'm OCD, although like many, I do worry about my health when things start to go wrong, but no more than most I think.

Well, it's clear that I've now got herpes type 1 (cold sores on my lips), I guess the only question is, has it travelled down stairs by, indirectly, oral sex.

The times that I've felt a cold sore come on (the tingling feeling on my lip), I've been sure not to have oral sex, either given to or by me.

Towards the end of a cold sore out break, I have kissed my girlfriend in the past. She still has no sign of a cold sore, which makes me think I've haven't passed it on to her...

Do you think it's possible for the body to fight the virus in it's early stages and win? If your immune system is strong enough and it's fighting a weak strain of the virus.

If I have contracted genital herpes and haven't had my first OB, could I, by kissing anyone, pass it on to them?? That's what I'm really worried about. Kissing friends and or family and passing it on to them...

I wish this would just go away. Feeling like this for 2 months is exhausting. I'm sick of being constantly in pain with no sign of relief in sight...

Originally posted by toughspot:
Ooops, sorry about not defining my terms. ocd=obsessive compulsive disorder.

OOOOH! LOL Okay, no problem. I was thinking along the lines of "Over the Counter Drugs" or something. LOL Thanks for clearing that up. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif

1in4

Hi again Scared77,

It is possible (and actually very common) to have the virus in your system and yet not get symptoms. In fact, as many as 90% of people with genital herpes are estimated to not know it because they don't get symptoms or their symptoms are so mild or obscure they don't associate it with being herpes. They can still pass it on, however, and it is believed that this is the most common way it is passed on.

I've never heard of a "mild strain" of herpes. There are some people who are exposed to it and never get it (like the partner/spouse of someone who has it), but it is not known why they don't. There isn't a middle ground when it comes to having herpes -- you either have it or you don't, and if you have it you have it for life. You may or may not get visible or recognisable symptoms, but that's not the same thing as whether you have it or not.

Just because your gf doesn't get symptoms doesn't mean she doesn't have it. She should get a blood test to see if it shows up. If it comes back negative, she might want to be retested 4 months after your initial genital symptoms to be sure.

If she was the vehicle by which the HSV-1 travelled to your genitals (assuming that's what it is), I think it would be pretty unlikely that she would not have it. But I'm not a health care professional or researcher; I'm just going on what makes sense to me (which is not infallible).

I think you're going to have to keep getting swab tests on your genital symptoms until something shows as positive, and I think your gf's going to have to get blood tested (type-specific testing is definitely best) to find out if she has been infected. In the meantime, I'd avoid mouth contact with people until you find out what's going on with this and you learn what your OB patterns are (how frequent, what warning symptoms, etc.). If you're getting frequent OBs you might want to check into antiviral drugs to settle them down. It would be interesting to see if the drugs clear up your genital symptoms too, which would support the speculation that it's herpes there.

Keep us posted!

TheOneInFour

Just adding to the discussion regarding genital herpes...

I can tell you from personal experience that if you don't have "classic" symptoms then the doctors are not going to dianose herpes - unless a test confirms otherwise. They will do some testing in effort to try and determine what it is but it will likely come down to a blood test.

I understand what you're going through because I'm in the same spot (concerned about genital herpes without a diagnosis). I've pressed both my doctors about the fact that herpes can manifest itself as a rash, scratch, pimple, or almost any type of irritation in the "boxer shorts" region (as 1in4 says). But...both come back to the fact that it's generally a blister and if it's not "classic" in symptoms it probably isn't herpes. Perhaps there is some mis-information in the medical community.

But...I'm not sure that's the case. I read a post from a dermatologist responding to a concerned individual about herpes by saying the following (I'm paraphrasing). "It can be difficult to diagnose and there's really not much to do either way (other than go on medication). No conspiricy here, just an uncooperative ubiquitous virus."

Thanks 4in1 and toughspot,

I feel better being able to chat to someone about this. Keeping this bottled up has been driving me crazy and this site has been a great help.

Thank you for all your advice. It's greatly appreciated.

I hope and pray that it's not genital herpes. But,if it is, I need to take it on the chin, accept it and move on.

I think I need to stop convincing myself of the worst case and start listening to my doctors. I'm probably making myself worse by thinking I've actually got without any confirmation that I do.

I'm a "glass half full" kind of person so I should take that same mind frame in this case.

I could understand one doctor mis-diagnosing me, but 3? I'd really hate to think it's possible for 2 GPs and a specialist to miss something like genital herpes.

If I do have my first out break (assuming I have the virus), I'll keep you posted. In the mean time, I'll avoid all sexual contact until I know what "this" is.

Although I'm still very scared about what I might have, I guess the only thing I can do is wait... and hope.

Thanks again for all your help.