I didn’t get much sleep this week. It was overall a pretty hectic week, and on Friday, when I started to feel like I was coming down with something, I naturally thought it must be due to my lack of rest.
My throat was quite sore, I felt tired, I was couching a little, etc. The weird things was, that as the day wore on, my sore throat spread into my mouth. The back of my mouth and my gums felt sore. By saturday, it felt like my tongue was swollen.
The thought then came to me that I might have herpes. I don’t know how I could have gotten it, but the symptoms seemed about right.
You can imagine my elation when I arrived at this possibility.
Saturday, even though I slept quite well, I was extremely tired. At work, I could hardly stay focused. My mouth was killing me.
That night, my girlfriend took me to the doctor. As they spoke to each other in Chinese (I’m in Taiwan) I heard the word “Herpes symplex”. The doctor said that I had most likely gotten it from my students (I’m a teacher here).
The thing is, though, is that all of the sites I look at concerning the blasted disease mention cold sores on the lips. I don’t have that. All of the sores are in my mouth. In fact, I can’t even see any sores. I can just feel them. My gums are very red and disfigured, but there are no sores, per se. I always imagined there would be ulcer-like legions with herpes.
So does this sound like herpes?
Also, as a kid, I would get ulcers sometimes, isn’t that herpes? If so, how can I get it again? Is this a different strand of the virus?