HSV2

[prettynpynk]

Morning!  I've been reading a lot of posts on this site and a lot of people note that their diagnosis came with a number associated with their detection.  My doctor shared just that you received a positive detection for the antibodies.  What's the difference?

[gracefromHHP]

it depends on the kind of test you had done as well as the way the lab reports.  the herpeselect immunoblot will only return with a + or - and it has false positive issues. If it wasn't the immunoblot or a herpes Wb blood test, ask your provider to call the lab to see if they do indeed have numeric results but just report with + or _.

have you had any genital symptoms that were suspicious for herpes?

At this point, unless you had a herpes WB blood test done ( which isn't likely ), you'll need to repeat your testing with a different test to confirm your status if you've never had any genital symptoms that you can wait to reoccur for a lesion culture.

grace

[bobrope45]

Some labs have been reporting their results as "positive" or "negative" only, but most ELISA IgG tests still show a number. The number is important because many low positives are actually negatives and require confirmatory testing.

Still, you should ask for a copy of your results - sometimes, doctors only report as "positive" or "negative", disregarding the issues with false positives. When you do receive the copy, post the results here and we'll help you with them.