I'm quite worried. I received oral sex from someone today, and only afterward I noticed that he had what might be a cold sore on his lip. It was not very obvious I should have looked much closer.
Anyway...my question is....what is the liklihood I'll get genital herpes if it was in fact a cold sore?

I've read the incubation period is usually 2-20 days.....I've spent an entire day worrying....the next 20 days is going to be hell!

I'm pretty sure I have had cold sores on my lips in the past. HOw much protection will this give me?

Has anyone gotten a bj from someone with a cold sore and NOT gotten herpes? exactly how high is the transmission rate? I just keep reading "highly contagious" Does that = 100%?

Hi Colin,

So sorry to hear about your situation. I can understand you'd be concerned. The good news is it's not 100% probable that you have contracted herpes genitally. But of course there is a chance that you did.

I can't give you solid numbers but I can say that the fact that you already have HSV-1 orally (cold sores) does provide a certain amount of protection against contracting it elsewhere. However, it can still happen, as others on this board will testify.

In order for herpes to "take hold" at a new location, there needs to be some kind of entry into the skin, like even a tiny cut or scratch. If there is no entry point for the virus it can't take hold, which is partly why some people get it while others might not, given the same kind of exposure.

Another factor is that if your friend has HSV-1 orally (by far the most common cause of cold sores; rarely HSV-2), HSV-1 doesn't "take hold" as easily in the genital area, so that could afford some protection too.

I think at this point all you can do is watch out for genital symptoms, which could include blisters, sores, swelling, bumps, red area, rash, etc. You should also be aware of any itching, burning or tingling in a spot in that area, which might indicate an OB happening, although you may or may not get visual symptoms in that case. No need to get totally paranoid about the slightest twinge, but be aware of anything persistent or strong in one place.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending how you look at it, HSV-1 genitally tends to produce much less severe symptoms and fewer OBs. So if you do have it, that's good news but it might also make it harder to tell if you do in fact have it there.

Sorry not to be able to give you a more solid answer about this. Herpes is far from an exact science and sometimes it seems to have more exceptions than rules. LOL If you do get what might be symptoms, get in to see your doc ASAP and get a swab culture done on the spot in question. Unfortunately false negative results are very common, but it's still worth a try. Just get in there ideally within 24-48 hours of when the symptoms first start.

Good luck! Keep us posted how you make out.

TheOneInFour

It does, unfortunately, happen and is on the rise. It happened to me. My BF had a cold sore on his lip and I had a cut outside of my vagina from rigorous sex. We had no idea that it could be contracted that way. I swear I remember someone asking if it was possible in Cosmo and that they said it was "extremely rare" and would "require the virus to mutate to type 2" or something like that. But I KNOW they said it was rare, so after he went down on me and we thought about it, I shrugged it off.
You could get it, or you might not. All you can do is wait.
I know it's scary (Once my symptoms showed up, I worried about it being herpes for a wk b4 I was able to be properly diagnosed) but it's definitely not the end of the world.
*hugs* I hope things turn out alright for you.

Originally posted by TickledPeenk:
I swear I remember someone asking if it was possible in Cosmo and that they said it was "extremely rare" and would "require the virus to mutate to type 2" or something like that. But I KNOW they said it was rare, so after he went down on me and we thought about it, I shrugged it off.

That makes me so mad to hear that a mainstream magazine is publishing misleading and possibly inaccurate information! HSV-1 will NEVER mutate into HSV-2 or anything else for that matter; nor vice versa. They're totally different viruses (albeit related) and will always remain the virus that they are, regardless of the location. It's like saying a Persian cat will suddenly mutate into a Siamese cat just because it's taken in by a different owner.

Unfortunately the media often gets mixed up between HSV type and location being equivalent, simply because type-1 is most often found around the mouth and type-2 is most often found genitally. I often see on websites that genital herpes is always HSV-2 and oral herpes is always HSV-1, when that's not necessarily true.

So sorry you got caught in the misinformation that's out there. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/frown.gif

1in4

I wish I could remember which issue it was in, because I'd sure love to give them a piece of my mind! If they hadn't have said that, I probably wouldn't have let him go down on me with that cold sore on his lip and I probably wouldn't be in this situation!
I'll go through my stack when I have time and see if I can find it again...