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Hello! My name is Gary, and I’m twenty-nine years old. I will be the first to admit that I am a bit of a novice when it pertains to information regarding herpes, and the rest of the sexually transmitted disease family. However, after a possible recent exposure to the virus, I thought it would be best to try and educate myself a little more than I had been prior to this experience. The internet seemed like a logical place to begin my journey.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve spent about an hour or so each day reading over various websites that deal with this particular subject matter. My time and efforts have been basically fruitless thus far. Each website seems to state the basic facts that you were taught in high school, and the more detailed information given all seems to contradict something that I had previously read on another page. So, I signed up to this message board with hopes of finding answers from people that can either speak from solid facts or personal experiences. Before I get to any of the questions I have, I will try my best to briefly bring you up to speed with where my situation currently stands.
Slightly over one month ago, my fiance started to complain of a slight burning during urination. She noticed that her genitals had an inflammed look to them (reddish in color, slightly swelled, etc) as well. A few days later, she was awoken in the middle of the night by an intense itching sensation in her vaginal area. She said it was so persistant that the only way to find any type of relief was to itch it. The next day, she noticed a white bump forming where she had been itching the night before. Several more bumps showed up about two days later, and with them came intense pain when urinating. At this point, we realized there was definitely something wrong, and decided to seek out medical attention at the local emergency room.
The doctor on call took one look at her, and immediately came to the conclusion that it was herpes. He also decided to examine inside her vagina as well, and noticed that her cervix was inflammed. His conclusion to that was Chlamydia. He ordered a swab culture and blood work to confirm everything. The swab culture came back as herpes, and she was told to come back in a week’s time to get the results of her blood work. This is where things start to go medically awry.
She went back for her results, and the person she saw for this appointment told her there was no record of her ever having bloodwork done. No blood samples. No documentation. Nothing. It was as if she never had blood work done at all. Needless to say, we were both angry beyond belief. She asked to have blood taken once more, and was told to call back in a week’s time to obtain her test results. This time around, she called back on the seventh day and her gynocologist said the results hadn’t come back yet. She assured her that she would be in touch with her as soon as she had any information to give. My fiance called back about four days later, and still no luck. She decided to wait a few more days, and then call once we got passed the two week mark. The gynocologist still had no results, and said that if she hadn’t heard anything back by this point in time, that she most likely wasn’t going to hear anything at all. No positive. No negative. No results at all. She also said she'd have to wait another six months before being tested again bc her insurance won't cover it again until then.
I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of frustration we were feeling at that point in time. We were told she has herpes, but half the tests to confirm it or let us know which strain of HSV she has have been lost. Still, we decided to remain optimistic and continued to push forward with out situation. Our next step was to schedule and appointment with her gynocologist to ask any questions that we needed to about Herpes. We’ve had no luck there at all either. The first time around she had to reschedule on us, and the second time she cancelled on us all together…which brings us to where we are currently.
Now, I can finally get to the questions that I have regarding HSV. I apologize for this being somewhat of a long-winded post up to this point.
1. Is there any type of incubation period associated with Herpes? The reason I ask is because I do not have HSV. I have been tested for STD’s several times in the past – all results came back negative. I got tested again once this situation came about, and specifically asked to be checked for Herpes (or to possibly be a carrier of the disease). Once again, my results came back negative. My fiance was a virgin prior to meeting me, but was in an abusive relationship (two years before I came along) where she was made to do certain sexual favors to her boyfriend back then. We’re trying to sort of pinpoint how / when she picked this up.
2. What type of transmission methods are there? My mother now refuses to let my fiance use the upstairs bathroom at all. She allows her to use the one downstairs, but has put a sign on the door reminding anyone else to not use that bathroom. Quite frankly, this pisses me off because I hate seeing my fiance treated like a leper.
3. How much of an impact does HSV have on your sex life? We’ve been together for nearly two years now, and have been having unprotected sex for the majority of our relationship. If she truly had herpes, wouldn’t I have picked it up by now? Aside from that, we’re not really sure how to handle sex since this has all came about. We’ve gone back to using condoms (as well as the Valtrex pill she’s on) until we can find out what type of risks are involved. When is it safe to have sex? Is oral sex ok? Is there too high of a risk involved if we were to not use protection (other than her Valtrex)? I have plans of being with this girl for the rest of my life, and I'm curious as to how at risk I would be in that type of scenario.
I just wanted to give an early thanks to anyone who takes the time to sit down, read this, and offers up any feedback or suggestions on what we should do.
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