Herpes diagnosis

Dear Dr.,
I am a female, mid 30's.  Several years ago I was diagnosed as having genital herpes, this test was done while I had visible sores in the genital region. The Dr. at the time told me very little about it and just said I should only be concerned if and when I was going to give birth.  He only offered Valtrex as an "as needed" therapy, not a daily therapy.  I cannot recall ever having another "outbreak" since that time and wonder if it is possible to have been misdiagnosed?  I never saw the test results myself so I have often thought that maybe the test was wrong?  Would it be a waste of time to get the blood test to find out what kind (HSV 1 or 2) if any that I do have?  Also, this has proven to be difficult to explain to potential partners and most of the time the mention of herpes scares people off.  What are the true facts about the risk of me infecting a non-infected male partner?

Thank you for your time.
S

[petal130]

Definitely follow up with an IgG type specific blood test - that way you won't have to wonder anymore!  :-)

Visual diagnosis are wrong about 1/3 of the time, and too, you would need to know if it's HSV1 or HSV2 so you can make educated decisions with future partners.

As to discussing it with him, when you get to that place where you find that sex will be entering into the relationship, you'd need to have the STD/birth control conversation anyway. It's a two-way street in knowing who has what; don't assume you're the pariah here :-)

A great resource is the Herpes Handbook, here:
http://www.westoverheights.com/genital_herpes/handbook/view_the_chapters.html

If you find that the free handbook isn't enough info, check out Terri Warren's new book - "The Good News About the Bad News" - it goes into far more detail and is very helpful for newly diagnosed people and their partners. http://thegoodnewsaboutthebadnews.com/

Lastly, as to the risk, it's great news! If you were to take suppressive therapy and use condoms, there's a 99% chance annually that your partner would not get infected!

FEMALE TO MALE RATE OF TRANSMISSION (HSV2 ONLY STATS IS NOT APPLICABLE FOR HSV1)

If you have 100 couples where the female has HSV2 but not the male (these figures are over a year) the odds of female to male transmission are, if you do nothing other than avoid sex during an outbreak, 4 men out of a 100 will get herpes in a year, or 4%. If you do go on a suppressive therapy then it drops to 2 men out of a 100 in a year, or 2%. And if you use suppressive and a condom the chances are 1 man out of a 100 will get herpes in one year or 1%.
The Valtrex and transmission study stats are based on having sex 2 times/week.

[ooothatgirl]

What is your area of medical practice if it's okay to ask? This is all good information, thank you.

[petal130]

I'm not in any area of medical practice. I have genital herpes and have gained accurate knowledge from those who are experts.  If you read the header for this forum, it states:

"This forum is an un-mediated, patient-to-patient forum for questions and support regarding herpes issues such as: Herpes symptoms and treatments, causes, diagnosis..."