Yet another HSV2 IgG False Positive

[Bargmann]

Hi all, I wanted to share my story as I've dealt with months of stress and can now relax.  I'm a heterosexual male and have had unprotected sex with a small number of partners after asking if they were healthy.  Yes, clearly this is at the bottom of safe sex practices.  In early summer I found myself with what seemed to be a possible UTI.  After I noticed this I noticed a small amount of discharge from my penis.  I quickly became concerned and went to my local urgent care.  I was tested for everything and everything came back negative EXCEPT for my HSV2 IgG test which was a 1.24 (very low) positive result.  Never quite sure what was happening with the UTI but after both antibiotics and anti-yeast medications things cleared up.  I took another HSV2 IgG test about a week later and it came back with a 1.21 (very low) positive result.  I became really worried and did a ton of research and learned about the HSV2 western blot done by the University of Washington.  I never experienced any HSV2 symptoms at all.  However many people infected with HSV2 are asymptomatic and never know they are infected.

I should disclose here that I am a biological scientist and fully understand both the IgG test and the western blot.  The IgG test uses a cut point system and values close to the cut point threshold give unreliable results: there's really no way to tell if you're positive or negative.  Western blots look directly a the viral protein which are sorted by size to help with identification.  So as you will likely have read: get the western blot if you find yourself with a low negative.  You owe it to yourself to get full clarification.  What if you accept the low positive as being accurate and then go on to a HSV2 dating site and hook up with someone that actually has HSV2 and then you actually become infected.  This situation is untenable and it's a horrible shame to the medical community that they don't do reflex testing to the western blot for low positive IgG results.  The western blot results from UW are positive, negative, and indeterminate.  It's rare to get an indeterminate result and it's likely caused by some protein in your body that is similar to the HSV2 protein.  Anyway...

I called up the University of Washington and received the HSV2 sample kit, finally saw my primary care doc to get the paperwork filled out, and finally got my sample shipped to UW about 3 months after my first positive result.  Then waited and waited 2 weeks to get the result and had my primary care doc call UW to GET the result then waited for him to call me back with the result.  It was NEGATIVE.  I've learned my lesson and will take my sexual health and that of any future partners very seriously.  

Moral of the story: take your sexual health seriously and if you get a low positive HSV2 IgG result do yourself a favor and arrange to get the University of Washington HSV2 western blot so that you can confirm or refute your diagnosis.