Over six months is technically 'established' but it does get even more established each passing year.
@gracefromHHP my current partner is assuming he doesn't have it. Working on getting him tested.
When you say well established infection - are we talking about months or even years?
your symptoms do not sound at all like genital herpes!!! Trust me when I say you wouldn't have squeezed them and not had pain. With herpes, you squeeze it and the neighbors can hear you crying!!
You have hsv1. Most adults do have it. It's incredibly common. No reason to even think that it is genital. Only 20-40% of folks who have hsv1 orally ever get obvious cold sores to know that they are infected unless tested. Even though you can't recall cold sores, your igg result shows a well established infection and odds are it is oral. http://www.ashasexualhealth.org/stdsstis/herpes/oral-herpes/ has terrific info on oral herpes for more reading.
has your current partner been tested to know their herpes status or are they just assuming they don't have herpes?
really no reason for more testing for herpes as long as you are with this partner.
grace
Yes it will, this will progressively happen taking an avergae 4 weeks for a person infected. You will need to wait to test at 12-16 weeks from last exposure to be confident in a negative result.
If this is HSV2 - wouldn't my test come back positive for that as well?
It is exstremely difficult if possible to spread your own infection to your genitals. There is a negligible chance that for example receiving oral sex could lead to a genital infection despite the established oral infection. Not much is known about this it is so rare.
If this were to happen, it is unlikely that the outbreak would be severe owing to existing antibodies.
Thanks for your answer.
Is it possible to have an oral infection that somehow spread to a genital one?
As mentioned, it is not possible to test over 8 on an IgG test if you were infected 2 weeks previously. You hence have an oral infection.
Either this isn't genital herpes (most likely) or it is HSV2. The quickest way to an answer is to have your partner test, same IgG test as you and this will show you if HSV2 is a possibility.
Yes I had an IgG blood test done and it came back abnormal (>8.0) for HSV-1 and normal (<0.2) for HSV-2 to which my doctor said I have HSV-1.
The week leading up to the bumps (to my knowledge) I had sex with my partner twice. I went to the GYN a week after I noticed the bumps and they were gone by that time. She was able to see them because of the pictures I took and decided to order the bliood test.
All she said was that I am HSV-1 positive and it accounts for 40% of gential herpes but if I don't have symptoms I shouldn't worry about it.
Slow down here, you're well ahead of yourself.
I assume you had an IgG blood test come back positive for HSV1 with the blood taken within a few days of the bumps appearing.
This virtually proves that you have an oral HSV1 infection. Up to half of people with this infection have no memory of cold sores, yet they have it orally! The reason for this is that if you were just infected, then your blood would NOT have antibodies.
Hence the only realistic possibility is HSV2. If you are concerned then test for that 16 weeks after bumps appearing.
All this assumes you've had sex with a person with HSV2 in the week before the bumps appeared. What was your history in the week leading into the sores?