How many people do you know that have genital herpes?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Granted, I’m sure this isn’t exactly something people would openly talk about or anything, but I imagine you’d know with close friends (or notice their Valtrex laying about eventually. Hell, when I got shingles and had to take Valtrex, I got all kinds of looks from folks in the pharmacy and from my friends when they saw it in my bathroom).

At the student health center at my university, there is a giant poster that says one out of four people under 25 years old has genital herpes. That blows my mind, because while- again- I realize it isn’t exactly an open topic, I can only think of one person I’ve even heard of in my circle who has herpes. Actually, she’s not even in my circle- she was my roommate’s coworker for about 2 months*.

I’m 21. I’ve slept with a few people and while I realize maybe I was just lucky and didn’t contract anything, most of the folks I’ve slept with have been long term boyfriends and I think I would have noticed painful oozing sores. Then again, maybe it was laying dormant and had never shown itself (does that count in the 25%?).
This is a bit of a rambly thread, but I’m just curious. That statistic seemed. . . well, high to this college student. Am I just running with the wrong, herpes-free circles or am I just blind to the herpes and incredibly lucky?

*The girl was beautiful and I think it totally mind fucked my roommate to realize such a beautiful girl had herpes. My roommate isn’t stupid and while she KNEW, I don’t think she ever really KNEW that beautiful people get bad things like herpes, too. Ever since then, herpes has become my roommate’s worst fear- she Googles pictures of it so she can do a thorough penis check. Her mantra? “You always have to stay one step ahead of herpes.” :dubious: :stuck_out_tongue:

2

I only know three people who have told me they have herpes, but presumably some huge fixed percentage of people I know must have it. (By apples-and-oranges comparison, I only know three people who have owned up to filing for bankruptcy; one of them also has herpes.) I’d say really good-looking people are likelier than anyone else to have this or any other sort of STD, since they encounter fewer barriers to getting laid at will; the three herpes sufferers I know are better than average looking.

In this era of AIDS, Hepatitis C and other nightmare medical conditions, the sensible reaction to a positive herpes diagnosis is “Thank God it’s just herpes!”

3

Given the stigma against those who have STIs, I’d figure you’d have to be really close to someone to disclose information like one’s herpes infection. Nobody I know has ever disclosed this information to me, but I imagine some people I know must have it.

I believe it’s possible to have mild outbreaks - or none at all - for some time. There was some idiot in Williamsburg that decided to slander the guy she assumed gave her herpes… while the reality is, there’s no definitive way to know if she got it from that guy, had it for a while and was just experiencing a first major outbreak… or even gave it to the guy herself! (Of course, her hypothesis that he gave it to her could be true as well.)

The point is, by posting this guy’s photo around town she further stigmatized being a herpes… er, victim? She tried to make it sound like a really cool postmodern revenge thing but if you ask me it was pretty f***ed up. I can see why people who have herpes would want to keep this info on the DL based on that kind of stuff.

4

Oh my. I was going to make a joke about that guy, but I’d probably get yelled at by Dopers, so I shall refrain. :frowning:

And you are certainly right about the HIV thing. That was another thing I was curious about- how many people know folks with HIV or AIDS? Granted, HIV is probably easier to hide (or flat out not know about) than full blown AIDS, but I’m supposed to be from an AIDS-filled generation. Again, maybe all of my friends are secretly harboring HIV and don’t know it, but I don’t know of a single person (save for age patients I’ve volunteered with) who is HIV+ or has AIDS.

I once had a statistics professor have us do out a problem to figure out the odds of getting HIV, factoring in intercourse with one HIV+ person. While I don’t know how accurate it is, he said it was 1/500 times were the odds of contracting HIV from intercourse with the same HIV+ person.

5

Eesh, that’s awful. There is definitely a stigma. Like I said, when I had shingles (grown up chicken pox, for those not in the sweet chicken herpe loop ;)) I had to take Valtrex and oh boy, did I get the stink eye from folks. Hell, even the pharmacist would look me up and down with a bit of a glare when they handed me the prescription-- I don’t know if she didn’t read the doctor’s prescription or what, but she said loud enough for everyone to hear (intentionally, if you ask me) “Yeah, when you get your monthly outbreaks you just take this VALTREX-.”. I cut her off and said, “I have SHINGLES. You know- CHICKEN POX. This is, as I’m sure you know, probably a one time thing. But really, I appreciate you suggesting I’ve got an STD.”

My friend’s mom is an ER nurse and even she kept INSISTING I had genital herpes (the shingles were on the inner, lower thigh, right next to my right knee). Like, I’m fairly confident she still believes I’ve got genital herpes :rolleyes:.

So yeah, I couldn’t imagine how embarrassing it must be to have an ongoing prescription for that stuff. Not to mention the fact that those damned Valtrex pills are MASSIVE. Maybe I just had a particularly bad experience with asshole medical people and such, but yeah, I can certainly understand why one would keep it on the down low.

Still, I know which friend has hepatitis. I know which friend(s) ((note to self: no sleepy with them)) got the clap. I suppose this might be a hidden thing to, but I would imagine I’d have some idea for my close friends at least. I’m probably wrong, though.

6

I only know of one friend that has herpes.
Her husband, who knew she had herpes long before they were married, ended up blaming her for infecting him, which led to a nasty divorce.

7

Diosa, I can only hope that this teaches you a lesson, and that the next time you nestle up to some sweet, sweet cock, you use some kind of protection.

8

Wow, I don’t know if I’m brave or stupid, but I’ll raise my hand. The story is complicated (but I swear it’s true! Oh, and all this started almost 20 years ago, pre-Valtrex)

My mom had shingles. Before I knew what that rash was, I managed to contract it. Had I not been under an enormous amount of stress, it probably would have stopped there. But I was under an enormous amount of stress, and instead of me ending up with shingles, I ended up with oral herpes-hundreds of lesions in my mouth, down my throat. Ugh! It was horrible. To add insult to injury, my wedding was only a week and a half away! I was so sick from the lesions in my mouth and throat, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, nothing. So we went to a doctor, who looked at me and proclaimed she could do nothing. But when we told her our wedding was in ten days, she said “Well, there is a pill I can prescribe; but it’s experimental for oral herpes, and it’s expensive” and we said “we don’t care! We’re desperate!” So she gave us a 'script-for acyclovir. It was expensive, but it cleared up my mouth and throat in about three days.

So, how does this translate to genital herpes? Well, I’m not quite sure. Near as I can figure, there was some, uh, oral-genital contact between me and my (then) fiance, which translated from oral herpes to genital herpes. (The doctor who treated me warned me this could happen, but obviously the horse had already been let out of the barn by then; by the time we saw the doctor, there was no activity, because I was sick, dammit!)

Now, here’s the strange part: my husband has never had a genital lesion, even though if events played out the way they must have for me to contract it, he must have it. He does get the oral lesions, probably twice a year (only one lesion at a time, thank God!). I only get the genital lesion (again, only one at a time) maybe once a year. And almost never get the oral lesions. Since my outbreaks are so mild and so infrequent, there’s no point in my taking anything like Valtrex. When I do have a lesion, we either abstain from sex or use a condom. When he has an oral lesion, you can believe we abstain from oral contact as much as possible.

But I don’t understand the stigma attached to any of the STD’s. As an interesting aside, my husband and I own some rental properties in WV, and our newest tenant is a guy my hubby found on Craigslist. He was advertising the need to rent someplace. No one would rent to him because he has AIDS. :rolleyes: What the hell do I care if he has AIDS, as long as he pays his rent on time? It’s really none of my business, is it??

9

Yeah, the 25% figure is including people who are asymptomatic. What usually happens is that the first oubreak is the worst, and then it calms down. Unfortunately, it is possible to spread herpes even when you’re not having symptoms (a big reason for why it’s so common!). So while I certainly agree with your pal it’s wise not to sleep with someone who has sores on his penis, it’s not a guarantee of safety either.
Fun fact: It is even possible to give yourself genital herpes if you touch a cold sore on your lip and then touch your genitals without having washed your hands.
This is because, even though HSV-1 tends to prefer the mouth area and HSV-2 tends to prefer the genitals, they can both live in their non-preferred area too.

10

I know two women who have it. Both around my age of 26.

11

To bolster the statistics, I’ve never known anyone with an STD. Sure, someone might have had one, but I didn’t know about it.

12

I know someone who has it, but that person is older than 25.

13

Long story short, knew a guy who must have been symptom-less. He gave it to his GF (I knew her, she absolutely didn’t have it before him) and then dumped her. What a prince.

14

I know of one friend with genital herpes, and she didn’t know the above fact. There was oral/genital contact with her husband when he had a cold sore.
What’s worse is the ER doc she saw for the first very painful legion didn’t know the above, either. He was very rude to her. He told her that the only possibility was either she was cheating or her husband was cheating, because there was no other way to contract genital herpes. You can imagine how upset my friend was - she was in pain, confused, and here’s a doctor claiming her husband must be having an affair.

Fortunately her regular physician straightened it all out and Valtrex works well for her.

Minor nitpick - Valtrex is valacyclovir, not acyclovir. It’s similar to acyclovir but modified to increase bioavailability. (I spent a year doing process development on a new synthetic route, it’s sort of a pet molecule of mine.)

15

I am sure I have had well over a thousand patients with it…

16

What should he have done, married her? Once you give somebody an STD, you can’t break up with them ever?

Unless he broke up with her because she had it, but even then…you do get to break up with people.

17

If I were in that situation I would never say anything to anyone about being herpified unless I were planning to have sex with them. That is the only time anyone would know. My friends and family don’t need to know what is going on with my hoo-ha and I don’t need to know what is going on with their various bits. Same with any other STD really…it just isn’t information that anyone needs to know about unless there is a possibility of infecting them.

18

My post may have sounded like I thought Valtrex and acyclovir were exactly the same thing, but that’s not what I thought. I didn’t really know, until today, what Valtrex was. But when the doctor gave me the pills she did, almost 20 years ago, it was plain acyclovir. It wasn’t until a year or two later I started actually hearing stuff about acyclovir.

Hmm. Maybe that’s what happened to me, then. . .can’t say for sure, but it certainly seems like a possibility. It would explain why my husband’s never had an outbreak, I mean if he doesn’t really have it at all.

19

I once knew somebody who had the usual genital strain around her mouth, from oral on a guy who didn’t tell her he had it. What a prince he must have been.

As far as I know she’s the only one I’ve known who had it, but if I had it I’d keep it pretty quiet.

Diosa, I’m pretty sure that that woman doing that was against all sorts of rules. What a bitch.

20

Thank you for being honest and telling your situation :). Seriously! I really do appreciate it, it’s nice to put a face to the numbers and such, ya know? It’s just hard to comprehend that whole 25% figure.

That said, you can’t contract shingles from another person. A doctor is more than welcome to come in and correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that yes, you can contract chicken pox from someone who has singles (if you’ve never had it before), but shingles is an entirely different beast. After you have chicken pox, the virus goes and chills out in your spin. If you are immune-surpressed from some reason (on going infections, cancer, whatever) OR totally stressed out, your body can react by having shingles. Even then though, it’s my understanding that shingles is significantly more rare in younger folks than in older.

Also (again, this might just be my incorrect shingles research from when I had it- so feel free to correct me), shingles is in the herpes family but it is not the same as Herpes 1 (what is usually common oral herpes). Also, while you can get oral herpes on your genitals and genital herpes on your mouth, HSV 1 is a different strain than HSV 2. Shingles is herpes zoster (like chicken pox), while HSV 1 and 2 are both herpes simplex.