Spreading Herpes Type 1 Virus

[curious8080]

I have had cold sores for many years since a child...although I have not seen these in many years. My wife has also does occationally get cold sores as well. We both recently had some blood work performed and asked to be checked for STD including herpes, since we hear you could have the virus and not know you were infected (genitally). We both showed positive for the type 1 virus and negative for type 2 virus. We were concerned that we might not really know if we have the type 1 virus genitally or it we could spread the virus to our gential areas via oral sex. We have heard about different strains of the virus and this became our reason for concern. Can you catch the virus in different locations on your body i.e. from mouth to genitals and vise versa given our history. Thank you so much for any insight.

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

Once you have infection with HSV 1 orally, which you both have, then it is extremely unlikely that you would get this at a new location.  If you did, you would likely never know that this happened.  I have only once, in 33 years of practice, had a person who strongly believed that they had had cold sores as a child and now had swab test positive HSV 1 genitally.  Even with that case, I was skeptical.  People often confuse canker sores with cold sores so I'm not sure what to make of that anyway.  

If you were my patient, I would tell you to take this off your worry list and enjoy your sex lives as fully as possible with whatever parts of your body that takes, put together.  If I were personally in your situation as a couple, I wouldn't give it another thought.  

Hope this is helpful.

Terri

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

You're most welcome

Terri

[Answers8080]

Thank you Terri!

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

Since you are both infected with HSV 1 somewhere, my advice really doesn't change, no.  Wherever your HSV 1 infection is, for both of you, you are extremely unlikely to get it in a new location on your body  So what is, is.

Terri

[Answers8080]

Terri, thank you for the help, my wife and I did have an additional question, if we were not entirely certain if we had an oral infection...since we may have mistaken our infection for a canker sore, and we might not know conclusively where our infection might be located would this change your counsel to us as your patients, just trying to understand our test results. Again thank you so much for the clarification.

[Answers8080]

Thank you