Positive and Negative Results?

[confusingherpes]

I've had ONE sexual partner my entire life (I'm 21 years old) and we've been sexually active for two years now, no problems. Five months ago (late Feb, early March), I was in a foreign country and let a guy do oral on me twice. Since then, I've stopped talking to that guy because I didn't want anything like that with him, I honestly regret letting him do oral on me. Anyway, since then, I've only been having sex with my boyfriend of course, and will never ever let anyone other than him know me intimately because this is the man I want to marry and spend the rest of my life with. This past June, after a weekend with my boyfriend, I noticed vaginal irritation a week or so after that weekend. It was very itchy and red. Three weeks later, I went to see my boyfriend again and mentioned that it burned when I peed, he took a look and found a thin cut outside the vaginal opening. It also hurt when we had sex that time, which has never happened before.

I was afraid of Herpes, so I got a culture done on the cut and some blood tests. I received a call today saying that the blood tests were negative but the culture was positive. The nurse said that it was unlikely that I got it from the guy who did oral on me because the antibodies would have shown up in my blood by now. And it's also rare to get it from my boyfriend who has only slept with me for the past two years. The timing and my sexual history doesn't match the test results. The nurse said that it must be a recent infection, like 3 weeks, but I've only been with my boyfriend and he has never had any problems, symptoms, nothing. She had diagnosed me with a yeast infection before the results were in, and the medication definitely took all of the symptoms away so I was convinced this was only a yeast infection. Now, I don't know.

Is there any chance that a positive culture test could be false?

I am going to get retested tomorrow and next month again with my boyfriend, but since the thin cut healed thanks to the yeast medication, I don't know how accurate any tests will be considering that the blood tests will probably come back negative again.

Should I be worried? What should I do? Are there any other tests aside from blood tests and cultures that detect herpes accurately?

[petal130]

Nope - no false positives with a culture - it actually detects the virus or it doesn't.

Was the swab typed? It should have been.

The fact that your blood test was negative means most likely it's a new infection, or your blood test was a false negative. Your nurse gave you bogus info there. Herpes antibodies can take several weeks to several months to show in a blood test, regardless of it being HSV1 or HSV2.

Your boyfriend should be tested with an IgG type specific blood test.

Many folks have herpes and never have any symptoms, which is most likely the case for your boyfriend.