TheOneInFour

Hi 20/20,

Sooo sorry to hear about your situation! You're one of many who get it and never know for sure when or from whom. I am one of those too. I think I know who I got it from and when but I'll never know for sure. To your questions...

The chances of you having got it from your ex-DH are far greater than transferring it yourself. Genital HSV-1 is almost always caused by receiving oral sex from someone who has oral HSV-1. HSV-1 in the genital region is often very mild in its symptoms because it's not its preferred location, so it's very possible you had this for a while without getting symptoms.

However you could just as easily have got it from "Mr. I-don't-know-what-herpes-is." I suspect, like you do, that he wasn't quite as ignorant as he let on, but it is true that a lot of people don't know the facts about cold sores. They might know they're contagious, but many think it's contagious like a cold is; they don't realise it's a chronic recurring condition they could pass on. Some people don't even realise that cold sores are caused by the herpes virus. So he really might not have realised the risk he may have put you in...although he might not have really wanted to know either.

NO!! It is definitely not over or ruined! There are many people out there who are capable of seeing you as the wonderful person you are, not as a diagnosis, and you WILL find each other. If having "the talk" with someone is more than you can deal with right now, there is a wonderful dating site online for people with herpes. Do a search and I'm sure you'll find it.

There are precautions you'll need to take, like not having skin-to-skin contact with the infected area around OB times and other strategies depending on your partner's status. It will take a bit more effort and awareness but it's not insurmountable.

It is extremely important to tell a new partner before you become intimate with them. Like you point out, it's only fair to let the other person know so that they can make their own choice about it. It's bad enough to get it when the person doesn't know they have it and it's an innocent mistake. It's another thing entirely to find out you got it from someone and they withheld that information from you and denied you the right to decide for yourself if you were willing to take the risk with them.

How to tell them is a much longer discussion, but it has been talked about on this board and the messages are in the archives. Try doing a search for words like "talk" and "partner" and "tell" and you'll find some good discussions that talk about how, when, where to tell and what to say.

The main things to remember is: (1) DO tell your partner before you have sexual contact. (2) Choose a time when you can talk about it rationally and in private, and not when you're in the throes of passion. (3) Have information ready to answer your partner's questions, which could include websites, printouts or brochures.

The main thing to remember is that if you touch an OB area, be sure to wash your hands before touching other places on your body, especially areas with think skin or mucous membrane, like rubbing your eyes. The virus has to penetrate the surface of the skin in order to relocate to a new site, and so it's usually found in areas of thin or mucous membrane skin, or somewhere where you had a cut or scratch or something.

Also remember that just because you have HSV-1 genitally, that doesn't mean it will create OBs on your face. They are independent of each other as far as OBs are concerned, even though it's the same virus in both places (assuming you DO have it orally too). If you're getting OBs around your mouth now (if that's what that is, which it may not be) then it's most likely due to the stress you're putting yourself through worrying about it. So relax! Don't be so hard on yourself!

Same answer as above: Yes, you will definitely have wild passionate wonderful fulfilling thrilling sex again! Even oral sex is not as much of an issue as you might think, since a vast majority of people already have HSV-1 orally, so you don't have to worry about infecting them since they already have it. It doesn't mean you don't take precautions, like avoiding sexual contact around OB times, but it's not as much of an issue in that case.

There are no guarantees you won't pass it on to a new partner who doesn't have it (either orally or genitally), but then every person stands a 1 in 4-5 chance they'll become involved with someone who has genital herpes and as many as 90% of those infected people don't know they have it, so do the math.

I don't mean to be glib about it but nothing in life has NO risk. If you keep thinking of herpes as being the end of the world, you'll intimidate yourself into lifelong isolation, which is unnecessary and pointless. It helps immensely to cultivate a sense of perspective about this.

Learn as much as you can about herpes. Check out all the Resource Links on this board for good information. I especially like herpes.org which is run by health professionals with expert experience in the field. There's a great book called "The Truth About Herpes" by Dr. Stephen Sacks, which is excellent for information. Also check out ASHA (Amer. Social Health Assn.) and Planned Parenthood for good info and the latter may have info about local support groups, which are another great resource for you in learning how to cope with this. There are also all kinds of yahoo groups for people with herpes.

And stop beating yourself up over this! It's frustrating and even infuriating to find out you have it, but it doesn't help to turn that on yourself by being hard on yourself and berating yourself for not having avoided it. Somewhere between 20-25% of the population has genital herpes and it's estimated that most of us got it from people who either didn't know they had it or didn't realise they could pass it on without visible symptoms being present. Sounds like that's the same for you. So this is not always something we can protect ourselves from, and with poor public education out there it's even harder to stay up to date with this stuff. So don't be so hard on yourself.

Hope that helps. Give yourself a hug and concentrate on strengthening your self-esteem and self-worth.

TheOneInFour