so im a student at a school that has a health center which notoriously misdiagnoses me, badly enough that i've gone to the hospital several days after being at the health center because they messed up. regardless, a little under a week ago, about halfway through masturbation i felt a sharp pain which i checked out, it looked like a bad case of chafing. upon further examination in the morning, it looked like a sore, however, with the exception of extreme friction during masturbation, it has been completely painless. it was a single sore which my health center told me looked herpetical. they said it probably was, but they weren't 100% sure since it lacked pain, was a single sore, didn't have the "blistery" look and since i lacked other signs of an infection.

today, i got the site cultured (results back in 10 days) and was also given a blood test to check for syphillis (they doubted it is syph, but i have my suspicions based on internet research), but now i have two very daunting problems coming up quickly - first is a romantic interest who is visiting me this weekend who i've been sleeping with unprotected between january and as recently as two weeks ago (prior to the sore appearing) - my concern isn't that she gave it to me, cause frankly, i could care less about who did it, more importantly for me is her response and how to bring it up. secondly, all my recent partners are very interconnected with me socially and i don't really trust all of them to keep their mouths shut - as soon as i tell one, i am almost guaranteed everyone i am friends with will know about this, which would devestate me. so i really have 3 questions: does this sound like it could be a misdiagnosis, how can i talk about this with someone who i may have exposed (or who could have exposed me) and thirdly, does anyone think i have an ethical responsibility to inform recent partners if i know for sure they will not keep this a secret (some have it out for me, others have big mouths and some have talked about people's stds before).

any help quickly would be so appreciated.

thanks

It's never an easy conversation but just start out with - "we need to talk about something rather delicate - I noticed something unusual on my genitals this week so I went to the health center and they've discussed with me the possibility that it might be genital herpes. I'm waiting for my test results but I think it's also important for you to go get yourself tested to so we know who has what and can take appropriate precautions if needed - I have no idea if it's even herpes or how long I might've had it - this is the first time I"ve ever noticed anything unusual on my genitals but from the reading I"ve been doing lately I've found out that what most folks assume is a new herpes infection is actually just the first obvious reactivation of a prior infection so I think it's important we both get tested and share our results with each other." That way you aren't being accuastory and are still presenting some facts at the same time. As someone who never knew she had genital herpes until she passed it onto a partner and he told me - I really did appreciate his being able to come to me and talk to me about it even though it was pretty akward. I truly had no idea I had it until he came to me.

Chances are good that your lesion culture is going to come back negative so don't be surprised if it is. I'm guessing your school doesn't offer the pcr swab as a way of testing for herpes and you've had this lesions for over 48 hours now so the chances of it coming back negative are pretty high. Did they only draw blood for syphillis or did they also draw for herpes? If they didn't do a blood test on you too - definitely look into getting one. If they don't offer a type specific herpes igg blood test - you can check thru www.healthcheckusa.com and www.tstd.org to order the herpes select igg for hsv1 and hsv2. I don't know if they offer discounts for college students but it certainly never hurts to ask.

betsy