gential herpes and edema

[jcolton]

I recently went to see my Doctor because of symptoms of an apparent initial outbreak of genital herpes. At the time I had significant swelling of my lymph nodes and several blisters at the base of my penis with a few blisters on my penis. My Doctor took a culture and it came back positive.  It's been approximately a week since I noticed my first symptom. Although the swelling of my lymph nodes has receeded I now have significant edema/swelling of my penis.  The sores appear to be healing.  The only medication that I have applied to the sores and my penis is First Aid antiseptic and burn cream.  I spoke to my Dr. on the phone today and he is not sure why I would have edema at this point. Just wondering if there could be any relationship between edema and herpes infections as I have never had a allergic reaction to first aid cream.

[Alan Rockoff, MD]

Any infection cause inflammation, and one sign of inflammation is swelling, or edema.  The penis skin has a lot of give to it, so fluid under the kin will be quite visible--the same thing happens around the eyelids.  I expect that this edema will go down by itself.  Any recurrences of herpes will likely be much milder and shorter-lived, and will probably not have much or any edema associated with them.

Take care.

Dr. Rockoff