In an IMHO thread, another Doper discovered that what he’d thought was anything from a bacterial infection to an anal fissure was actually a herpes outbreak. I posted a few times to provide some general information and personal experience.
I’ve decided to open the subject up as an "Ask the . . . " thread for several reasons. First, herpes is very common in the general population and there is a great deal of misinformation. Second, there’s a huge stigma attached to it - one which, I believe, is undeserved. The only way to fight that stigma is to put a human face to it. Third, I’m tired of feeling like I can’t ever talk about it and wincing whenever someone makes a bad joke about it. Fourth, I figure there are many people out there who have questions, but because of the stigma, they don’t have anyone they can ask.
So . . . ask away. I’ll check the thread several times a day. I will do my best to give factual information, with citations if necessary, as well as my own personal experience.
Er. I’ve got nothing to ask, as I’ve got labial herpes and can pretty much extrapolate from there. I just wanted to say that it’s awesome that you’re opening this topic.
Hey dude, my dad transmitted herpes to me when I was 2. And there was no sex involved:
1)herpes can start in a variety of places, it can be genitals of course. But is much much more frequent in the labial form (lips, mouth).
2)it is very contagious when you have an outbreak
Me, the variety that I got (havent had a case in a while though) is either labial, but in a very severe form (with ulcers on the uvula, very painful) or eye herpes. And, believe me, eye herpes is excruciatingly painful, and if not treated right away, you’re gonna be technically blind for a few days.
I once had an issue with a boyfriend who wanted oral sex but couldn’t understand that no, it wasn’t a good idea because of the cold sore outbreak I had going around my mouth. “It’s not like it’s herpes or anything!”
:rolleyes:
No, dumbo, it’s not because I’m “squicky” about your dick, it’s because I don’t want your dick covered in sores.
Yes, yes, I know genital herpes is usually a different virus, but you can have either one in either place. I’ve had oral herpes for a couple decades now, but never an outbreak anywhere else. Apparently haven’t passed it on to my husband (in either classic location) after 20+ years of marriage, either.
Have no clue where I picked up the cold sores - never had 'em as a kid, not ever. Showed up in my 20’s, thought I had some sort of horrible skin infection (like another Doper, recently), went to a clinic and got the news. It’s annoying more than anything else.
What I suppose should not have been shocking to me in that interview was the idea that rate of infection goes up with age and marital status, I’m assuming correlating to number of sexual partners one has in a lifetime. That is, unmarried women over 40 have an infection rate of 30-50%, compared to the average 17%.
Also, something very important with herpes. It is highly contagious, and if you catch it, it will stay in your body forever. That is it can stay in your body dormant forever as well. And it’s an important point, you might have been carrying herpes for a very long while without ever knowing it, because it stayed dormant (I had no crisis from age two to nineteen). It will usually manifest itself in times of great stress or fatigue.
P.S:and if you got one in the eyes, go to the doc immediately.
Do people diagnosed with genital herpes suffer from chronic pain in their genitals, even when they are not having an outbreak? I have been in nearly constant recurring pain for years, but no definitive outbreaks (just occasional spotty rashes that were diagnosed as fungal, never anything like crusty/fluid-filled raised blisters), so doctors just tell me I don’t have genital herpes and won’t run any formal tests. I’ve seen a bunch of doctors and I can’t recall any of them even suggesting herpes as a cause, in fact no one has been able to tell me at all why I am in so much pain. My condition resembles some aspects of this guy’s testimony, except without the diagnosed outbreak. I recently get the random non-outbreak burning pains on my lips too (like right now).
I have had occasional outbreaks of oral herpes as long as I can remember, so maybe a blood test wouldn’t even be capable of telling me if I have the same virus as genital herpes, since it would just say that I do have it in my body.
(Also, for reference, I have been with my girlfriend for nearly 5 years, and she has never had the slightest symptom of herpes anywhere despite having unprotected sex with me countless times, so she thinks the whole thing is psychosomatic.)
I take it if you’ve got one in the eye its obviously something serious and not something like “man, my itchy dry eyes from pollen season are really bad this year”.
I have the impression that nearly everyone has been exposed to oral herpes at some point, and some people break out while others are resistant. I’ve been with my partner for 19 years (sheesh!) - he gets cold sores, but I never have, despite kissing him regularly during outbreaks.
As I understand it, this is one of the reasons that herpes antibody testing is pretty useless; virtually everyone has antibodies against oral herpes, and those antibodies frequently cross-react with the genital strains.
OTOH, I’m pulling all of this information out of distant memory and I don’t have time to research more deeply at the moment. phouka, can you confirm/deny any of this?
The problem is it starts exactly the same way as dry allergic eyes. You get eye a bit bloodshot, starting to get runny a bit. And one day later, your infected eye hurts so much and is so sensitive to light you cant even open up the other good eye. That’s what I meant by being technically blind. Even with both eyes closed, and sunglasses, sunlight will hurt you a lot. By this time, either someone has to drive you to the hospital or you have to call for an ambulance.
I’m used to the thing now, but the first time, I had no way of knowing.
Oh, my. I really wasn’t expecting this level of response. I was up late, slept in late, and just got back from walking the dog to Starbucks and back. (Feet = “owie”)
I will take it one post at a time.
MostlyClueless, thank you for your encouragement. It can be very daunting to bring this up, even in a nonsexual environment, because there is so much judgment attached to having the virus.
Yes, I know who I got it from, and therein lay a very depressing life lesson. I was in a casual sexual relation. I met the man online. We chatted until I felt comfortable that he was not an ax murderer. I provided my history, and he provided his. I believe he lied to me.
We used condoms, except for one time when he “forgot” to put one on, and in the heat of the moment, I decided not to bug him about it. After all, I was on the Pill. What I later determined was that the infection site - my outer labia - was where the condom would not have protected me.
Before I had symptoms of my primary outbreak, I had a UTI. No biggie, happens to me all the time with a new partner, even if I make a point of peeing after sex. When I called him and said, “hey, can’t do this weekend. I’ve got a UTI and need to rest,” he responded with a very mechanical “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through this.” I thought it was odd, but let it go.
When I was hit with the symptoms of my primary outbreak, went to my doctor, and got a preliminary diagnosis, I called him to warn him, and I got the same mechanical “Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through this.” It was just so . . . weird that it bugged me, and I puzzled at it until I realized that a) he knew he had herpes, b) he knew he was likely to infect me, and c) maybe he intentionally tried to infect me, what with “forgetting” the condom that one time.
Life lessons learned:
Just because he isn’t an ax murderer doesn’t mean he’s a good guy. That would be the fallacy of the excluded middle.
People can and will lie about their sexual history, gloss over test results, or purposefully not get tested so their suspicions are never confirmed.
Whether someone is so broken they’re in complete denial about their diagnosis or they’re so broken they are intentionally infecting other people, the result is the same. You are now home to a permanent house guest, and they don’t abide by the rules.
You may sound a bit unfair here. It is highly possible he didnt know he was on an outbreak when he had sex with you (and dont tell me you expect anyone you have sex with to tell you they may be hosting the virus. I dont bring that out when I’m on a date. But if I know I’m on an outbreak, I will tell or postpone any mingling of bodily fluids).
ETA: sorry for some confusion in some of my posts above, but in French herpes labial means herpes in the lips region (on the face that is), not in the female genitals (as I dont have those, it would have been hard for me to develop that kind of herpes).
I’ve never been married. I’ve been in only a handful of serious relationships. I’ve been in one serious relationship since I was infected. He turned out to be a nightmare of passive aggression. He pulled a stunt that was absolutely out-of-line, and I broke up with him. He tried to guilt me into getting back together by saying he’d caught the virus from me. I ran like the wind.
Capitaine Zombie is quite correct. The herpes virus can infect just about anywhere on the skin surface. In fact, medical literature often differentiates herpes, not by which type of virus it is, but where the infection shows up and what the likely vector of infection was.
For a while, wrestlers and other athletes who did a lot of work on mats could get minor infections of bare skin. I believe it was called herpes gladioratorum (warrior’s herpes?). Once coaches made a practice of disinfecting the mats on a regular basis, this wasn’t a problem. You can get herpes infections on the palms of your hands or the soles of your feet. Yes, you can get herpes on your cornea. This is a Bad Thing.
Generally, the herpes virus prefers mucous membranes - the lips, the mouth, the genitals, and the anus. However, there are only two types of herpes - HSV-1 and HSV-2. Doctors used to refer to HSV-1 as oral herpes and HSV-2 as genital herpes (or vice versa), but with the increase in adventurous sex, there’s really no point in trying to distinguish herpes type by location of infection instead of the type of virus.
The severity of the infection has less to do with the type of virus than it has to do with how many viral particles you were infected with and how well your immune system responded to them.
Most people who have herpes aren’t even aware of it. There’s usually a primary outbreak within 10 days of infection, and for most, it’s as minor as a small pimple or itchy spot that goes away in a couple of days and is never thought of again. For some, it’s a noticeable rash or patch of painful blisters that sends them to a doctor and get them a diagnosis and treatment. For an unfortunate few, the primary outbreak is excruciatingly painful, lasts two or more weeks, and is followed by frequent further outbreaks.
I have a Marvin Milquetoast of an immune system, and I believe I was hit with a very high viral load. Consequently, when my primary outbreak started, I got a patch of blisters that doubled in size in half an hour. I spiked a fever above 100. I had flu-like symptoms of exhaustion, joint and muscle aches, and I had nerve pain along the ganglion which had been infected. It literally felt like fire ants were biting my toes or like someone was holding lit matches underneath my feet. Mind you, the nerves in my feet were fine. It was where those nerves connecting to the sacral ganglia that they were inflamed and thus sending bad signals. I lost a couple days of work, went on a 10-day course of Valacyclovir (Valtrex), and had a prescription for hydrocodone for the pain.
Here’s the really, really important part:
*Doctors used to believe that you were only infectious when you had an active outbreak. THIS IS NOT TRUE. If you are infected with herpes, you can shed live viral particles from the infection site or any place you’ve ever had an outbreak at any time without symptoms. *
Now, it is unusual to be infected by a partner without symptoms, but it does happen. Valacyclovir is the only medication currently shown to lower the chance of this. It does not completely eliminate it.
Here’s the other bad part:
The infection lives and will always live in nerve pathways where your immune system can’t reach it. If you are shedding viral particles, pick some up on your fingers and then touch another place on your body, you can transfer the virus to a new site and become infected there. It’s called self-innoculation. It happens the most during the first six months of infection, before the immune system has really built up effective defensives against the virus outside of the nerve pathways.
So, no matter where you happen to have the infection, make sure you wash your hands after touching, or you could easily transfer it to your mouth, your genitals, your anus, or your eyes.
Getting ocular herpes is bad.
I have a friend who has a very mild case. All he knew was that a patch on the surface of his eye would get very, very painful and gritty and sore as hell. When he saw an opthalmologist, who identified it, he took a course of acyclovir (the precursor to valacyclovir), and cleared up the outbreak. Apparently, he had it for years and years, and his immune system kept it in check.
If you are newly infected and don’t have the immune response necessary to hold it in check, the virus can follow the optic or trigeminal nerve back to the brain and cause viral meningitis. It can be treated with high doses of acicyclovir, but there is a 70% fatality rate with this form of meningitis, and those who survive often have neurological deficits. Thankfully, this is very, very rare.
Your boyfriend at the time was an idiot, and the male gender should canonize you as Protector of The Penis for your efforts to avoid infecting your boyfriend.
I’ll say it again - there is no difference between oral and genital herpes. Both types of virus can infect both places. Fifty years ago HSV-1 appeared to prefer oral sites and HSV-2 appeared to prefer genital sites. That was only because there was (I suppose) less oral sex or other adventurous body part meetings.
Cold sores - oral herpes, often HSV-1 - can be picked up without kissing. Using a towel an infected person has used, or a toothbrush, or an eating utensil, or getting coughed or sneezed on, or touched by the hand someone used to cover a cough or a sneeze, can be enough transfer the virus.
I’m guessing, Broomstick, that your immune system was healthy enough to suppress the primary outbreak, and it didn’t show up until something else gave it an advantage - another illness (why they’re called cold sores, after all), a nutritional deficiency, some stress that depleted your immune system.
That is an excellent link, lisacurl, and the percentages quoted were a surprise to me (though I’ll fall directly into that category in another six months. sigh)
What I wish people would understand is that if you have ever, ever had skin to skin contact with another person - kissing, heavy petting, intercourse of any sort - you could potentially have HSV.
When people go in for their regular STD screening, testing for HSV should be part of that panel without having to ask specifically for it.
Right again.
Herpes is forever. In someone with a healthy immune system, it can stay completely silent for a very long time - while at the same time shedding infectious viral particles.
It can kick into action when your immune system is depleted by stress or by battling another illness. Take care of yourself. See your doctor. Have a standing prescription for acyclovir or valacyclovir if you can, and keep over-the-counter remedies like Abreva available.
Heathen earthling, the very definition of an outbreak is that you are having some sort of symptoms. It doesn’t necessarily mean the obvious blisters. For instance, I get very sore and achy hip joints from my lymph nodes powering up to take down the virus. I also get nerve pain from the infection where it inflames the nerves from my left leg running into the sacral ganglion. So, I think it’s very possible you could be having outbreaks without the full spectrum of symptoms.
For instance, I do not get the weepy, crusty blisters others complain about. I get blisters, but they seem to be much deeper in the skin, especially on my inner labia. On my outer labia, they are flat and very, very tender. Only recently, a patch that I thought was bumps from ingrown hairs responded to an application of Abreva, so they must have been viral blisters.
I don’t get the tingling or burning prodrome many people with herpes do. I get itching.
The thing is, the herpes virus resides in the nerve pathways, so if you’re experiencing pain in any location the virus has access to, it could be caused by the virus. It may be the virus active in the nerves without making it all the way to the skin where it can shed infectious particles.
My suggestion: go to Planned Parenthood or another clinic and request the blood tests for HSV-1 and HSV-2. Understand that while these tests can identify the antibodies for these viruses, they can’t point to where your infection sites are. However, if you are positive for either, with the symptoms you have, I think it’s very reasonable to assume that you’re experiencing (remember this phrase) herpetic neuralgia.
If you’re positive, talk to your doctor about an anti-viral such as acyclovir or valacyclovir as well as lidocaine gel (does wonders for the nerve pain when it’s close to the surface of the skin), or, if the pain gets bad enough, hydrocodone or Lyrica. Hydrocodone is a narcotic, and doctors are understandably reluctant to prescribe it for a chronic condition. Lyrica has been found to help with nerve pain associated with fibromyalgia, and I’ve read a couple of time that doctors use it off-label for herpetic neuralgia.
BTW, just because your girlfriend has no symptoms does not mean that she’s HSV negative. She might have picked it up and never had an outbreak. Or, you may simply not be shedding virus particles. If you test positive, she should get tested as well. Valacyclovir is the only medication shown to lower the incidence of infection in long-term dischordant (one has it, the other doesn’t) couples.