Help understanding a Herpes situation

I am posting this for my ex-girlfriend since she can't get answers anywhere else. She and I met in the military early 2011, about 6 months before I was scheduled to get out of the military. Before getting out, she and I were sexually active, but had no signs anything was wrong. She left me due to stress and other complications about 2 months later, and began being sexually active with a different man, but got fully screened in August 2011 before becoming active with him. She is JUST NOW FINDING OUT (8 1/2 months later) that back in August, she was "positive for traces of HSV". Upon asking further questions, she was told it was for HSV-1, and she was negative for HSV-2.

Well, 2 months later, this guy ended up cheating on her and got chlamydia, and gave it to her. She went to get tested because I suggested it, and she was positive for chlamydia, but negative for everything else. The guy also got tested that month, and had the same results. This past January I went up to visit her and her family (we're all very close) and she and I ended up having unprotected sex a few times during the visit. 3 weeks ago, I got tested as part of annual screening and came up negative for everything.

Is there any reason why this would happen? She was positive for "traces of HSV-1" in August 2011, but negative 2 months afterwards when she tested for chlamydia. The 2 people she had been sexually active with since this test are both negative. She was told by the person at her clinic that she is a "dormant carrier", but wouldn't that mean she'd still test positive now? She could not be told what test was used (so no idea if it was IgM, which is inaccurate from what I hear), nor does she know the actual numerical values. I suggested she go home and be tested by an intelligent doctor (since military ones in my experience are incompetent, for the most part).

The main reason for concern is she and I are talking about slowly working things out between us, but these completely botched signals we're getting from these tests is a bit...unnerving. Thanks for any insight :)

[gracefromHHP]

there's no such thing as being positive for traces of hsv1. unless she can get the exact test results, really nothing else I can help her with at this point to be honest.   not sure how HIPAA applies to the military for her rights to her test results.

grace

[maxton]

She's going to pull the test results out of the women's clinic that tested her and get me the numbers so I can see exactly what they were looking at.

[gracefromHHP]

sounds like a plan :)

[maxton]

I'm looking at the paperwork now, and all it says is that it was an IgG test and results are positive for HSV-1, negative for HSV-2, however there are no actual numbers.

[maxton]

They confirmed it was a blood test and not a culture test. From your knowledge, is the culture test more accurate than the blood test, or vice versa?

[gracefromHHP]

blood tests are usually helpful. since she's had no active symptoms either orally or genitally, it's the only testing that can  be done.

most adults will test + for hsv1 whether they can recall actual cold sores or not. even the best blood tests still miss 1 out of every 10 hsv1 infections so hard to tell if her first test was more accurate than the 2nd or if the 2nd was the inaccurate test.  She can consider getting a herpes WB blood test to confirm her status if she wants.