The western blot has to be ordered from the University of Washington lab. That is the only place is it commercially available in the US. You can order a test kit from there to be sent directly to your doctor or to you and then you can give it to your doctor to have the blood drawn or we can help you with that at our clinic.
Terri
Yes last time I got it test was in November of 2012 and it was negative after that I had unprotected sex last one was in Oct that is about 4 month you are right and after that encounter I had protected sex not unprotected. so I shouldn't get retest? You said I might have something similar anitbody in my blood stream as herpes what is the other thing that cause the same reaction? And I live in Florida do they have western blot here?
I suspect that retesting would reveal a negative result, or possibly another equivocal result. You may have something in your blood stream that is similar to the antibody to herpes that is giving a slight reaction to this particular test. It actually happens quite a bit of the time. Honestly, if your last contact was in October, we are at just about 4 months, right? It should be accurate. However, having said that I will tell you that the test you took is not great at detecting HSV 1 antibody. It misses one of 10 positives. So if it missed your positive HSV 1 test it could mean that you have been positive for many years or just acquired it, which I don't believe is the case, since it was a protected encounter.
My advice to you would be to not test again. I suspect your results will be similar the next time. If you do have HSV 1, you are the same as 56% of the US population between the ages of 14 and 49. What would you do differently? I'm not quite sure.
If you really want the best test currently available for HSV 1, it is the western blot done at the University of Washington. I'm not clear that is really necessary, but that's how you would get it if you really want clarification of your HSV 1 status.
terri