HSV or Shingles

[hey184]

Hello -

I recently went to the drs. and they diagnosed with herpes, but I have not gotten my test results back. They clusters are located on my upper left thigh and is only on one side of my thigh. I recently stayed at a friends house and she told me that her and her roommate had shingles a while back. I sleep in the roommates room that night. What do I have? I hope it is shingles....

[justjazzy]

Not to thread hijack, but I forgot to mention my doctor kept repeadtedly asking me if I had chicken pox as a child , which I did. Plus the medication she gave me is for herpes zoster. I was taking 3 valaclovir pills a day and now i have these sores on my upper arm. i initially had one on my lower abdomen, it went away but i had been touching it a lot and wonder if i may have spread it to my arm. I used the zovirax after all and it is clearing up..i wont have my igg. results back for another 2 weeks, but im trying to think of what to make of all this in the meantime. does this sound  like herpes zoster to u? The sores are itchy :(

[gracefromHHP]

shingles is a reactivation of the chicken pox virus. If you never had chicken pox and were around someone who had shingles, you'd get full blown chicken pox and odds are it wouldn't be just on one thigh either.

I assume you had a visual diagnosis of herpes and are waiting for actual test results to come back? What testing did they do?

grace