Herpes test results

[puffycloud]

ok I went in to have a series of blood work done... they drew blood and did a herpes test on me .....went back in a week and according to her she did a IGM (type specific) test on me ..... when I got the results back it was a ratio that was giving to me... for HSV-1 it was suppose to be 120 or less and mine was 120 for Hsv-2 it was suppose to be 120 or less and mine was 140 .... soooo do I have Herpes?? is this test accurate ..Ive never had any outbreaks or anything to belive that I have herpes ....I am freakin out .... she redid the test to make sure it wasn't a false positive so I will get that back in a few days.. Could another illness that I've had previously in life ...mono, chickenpox, shingles, could any of these make me have a high HSV-2 count for this test... and how accurate is this test?!  any advice would be great!

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

I am not familiar with testing that gives these values.  However, if the cutoff for positive if 120 and you are at 140, that means you have a low positive. With other tests, we know that those often don't confirm when tested with another test, like the western blot.  If you were our patient, we would recommend that you either ask the partner of 22 days ago to get tested OR wait 16 weeks from that encounter and get a western blot test.

Terri

[puffycloud]

oh and yes I live in the united states :)

[puffycloud]

no there was no particular reason to have the testing done... I came in to the office for a sinus infections..and also some discharge down below ...she went ahead did a pap smear on me to see if I had yeast infection or bv .....also tested for other stuff like chylamida ..etc...etc...and my mom was wanting some thryroid antibody test done on me which included drawing blood ....so she said while we are drawing blood do u just want go go ahead and test everything ... I said sure why not?! ...so she did ....all test came back fine except for this one ....soo when I called her back yesterday to find out what my numbers where ...cuz I thought for sure it would be normal numbers ...she said the results where a "ratio"  anything below 120 was good any thing greater than 120 meant postitive or that antibodies exist ....With herpes 2 and with this test can a preivious illness like mono.....chickenpox ...can the antibodies from that get mixed into this test..and make my result go over 120??? and my last sexual contact was 22 days ago. ....im just dumbfounded over here ......ugggggg :/

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

First of all the IgM test should never be done for adults to try to rule out or diagnose herpes.  Only the IgG test should be used for that purpose.  There are many many false positives on the IgM test.  Also, I don't know what test she might be using that would give those numbers, not the usual tests, that's clear.  Do you live in the US or elsewhere?  Is there a particular reason you had testing done?  When was your last sexual contact?

Terri