Is it really cold sores?

[squirrelyfish]

I've been to 4 doctors, but I don't trust the diagnosis...still. Background: I've never had cold sores in my life. I also had a full STD workup in early October which showed no trace of HSV 1 or 2.

Around Christmas, I started getting tiny red bumps between my upper lip and nose. They looked exactly like shaving bumps.

They slowly grew, and turned into little donuts shaped things. These slowly grew into yellow crusty like blisters (for lack of a better word). They never really oozed anything, but for a while I was putting a bandage over them to hide them from sight, and there would be small yellow dots on the bandage pad when I removed it. Now, they're still yellow and ugly, and 3 weeks later show no signs of receding.

The first doctor I went to on New Year's Day said cold sores, gave me valtrex and mupiricin just in case he was wrong. Also told me to follow up with my primary as he wasn't equipped to take a sample and send it out for testing.

Next day, my primary was closed, so I went to the clinic tied to his practice. That guy looked at it and said, nope, impetigo. Was able to extract enough fluid for a bacterial culture. Didn't have the equipment to do an HSV culture.

Gave me clindamycin and told me to stick with the mupiricin.

Took the clindamycin that night, and was in the bathroom in agony. I have a very sensitive GI system and IBS and just couldn't handle it.

Called him the next day, got switched to doxycycline. I was on the two of them combined for about 4 days, and no noticeable change in pain or appearance occurred in that time.

Next night, was still having awful cramps and diarrhea. Called my parents in a panic, ready to go to the ER, but they said sit tight and find a dermatologist the next day.

Went to a dermatologist. He looked at it, even ripped one off, and said it was HSV. Gave me more valtrex and zovirax.

Had a followup with my primary the next day for my stomach. He also concurred it was cold sores. Said they are too dry to do a culture to confirm HSV 1 or 2. Also said the cultures from the clinic came back negative for all impetigo bacterium.

I did 5 days of valtrex, 4 days of zovirax. Still, whatever this is will not heal. It still hurts. A lot. It still burns and tingles and gives me stabbing pains periodically.

I really am having trouble believing this is that because it's just not responding to ANYTHING we've thrown at it.

So...to the question. What else could repeatedly get diagnosed as cold sores? We know it isn't impetigo. Could it be syphilis? Shingles? Sebacious Hyperplasia? Some sort of fungus? I've been told that blood tests for HSV 1 or 2 are not reliable. They tend to have both false positives and negatives. What can I do here? I'm desperate to not get this diagnosis of HSV.

Now...on the chance it still is cold sores. My next question. I can't find a consistent answer online. What is the realistic likelihood of autoinnoculation by touching a sore and then another part of my body? Before this was diagnosed (and in the period when I thought it was impetigo) I suspect I was lax at best about washing my hands before using the bathroom. Even since then, I try to be consistent but I might not sometimes. The reason I ask is, I've developed a burning rawness in the very top of my "butt crack", near the coccyx. Now, it is slightly reminiscent of pain that I get when I have a lot of diarrhea from IBS...but I don't think I've ever had pain that high up in the crack. I've done the best I could to look in there using a mirror, but I can't see much. It looks red, but I can't tell if there's bumps or not. I can tell most of the crack appears red. I'm in a panic now because I'm afraid I've spread this accidentally.

I appreciate any help or answers you can provide here.