Questions:
1 are there different strains of genital herpies?
2 can you be infected with more than one strain?
In other words if you already have genital herpies can you be infected by another strain or can you infect someone else who already has genital herpies with the strain you are carring?
3 If someone has one form of herpies, say oral or HSV 1, are they then immune from being infected by other strains or forms of herpies, like HSV2?

1. Genital herpes can be either type of herpes simplex. About 1/3 of diagnosed genital herpes infections are the type 1 virus, usually associated with oral herpes, AKA cold sores.

2. Yes. I have type 1 orally and type 2 genitally. It is also possible to have both types genitally simultaneously, but it's not common and diagnosis requires a type specific sample be taken from the area for either a type-specific culture or a PCR test. The results may be ambiguous at that unless both types show up in a single test. it's possible that one could be active and the other not, resulting in a false negative for one of them.

3. While both types are very similar, having one does not give complete immunity against the other, as my situation proves. There is some indication that having one type in an established infection may lessen the impact of the other.

There are "strains" within the two types. These are minor, although detectable through DNA analysis, differences and it is generally thought that having one strain of a given type, will provide antibody protection against another strain of the same type.

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