is this herpes?

[JimTr]

Hi,

I am a 23 year old male, in very good health; I assume this is what you say when you don't have any diagnosed conditions at all. Anyway to my question I have had protected and unprotected sex, but during the last months unprotected as I am in a relationship. I recently made a workup for all most STD's but the clinic as far as I am concerned didn't make the IgM or IgG herpes test for either types but once I learned about it I ordered them last week and I am waiting the response within a couple of days.

As you can see from the picture there is this pimple, lump? I don't know how to quite call it; in size it is very small, painless and appears to be filled with fluid (I am not so sure about that as I tried to squeeze it but didn't burst). It's also in the similar size and color as some of my pearly penile papules that I have since I was 12. It's painless and causes no irritation whatsoever. I was afraid that it might be herpes but I looked almost all the photos that I could find on the web but nothing looked quite similar. I also checked herpes symptoms and I didn't have any of them (i.e. being tired, swollen lymph nodes in the groin or neck, slight fever etc). Finally yesterday I had couple of these pimples(, lumps?) in the rim of the penis as well, like this one although in different spots along the rim but now they are gone. Using a magnifying glass I didn't find any herpes-like ulceration (like the pictures in the web) but after using my nails to cut them off they emitted a bit of clear fluid but even after that they didn't hurt and now it seems they were never there.  It has to be noted that as far as I am concerned up until now I've never had a herpes outbreak nor in the mouth or the genitals.

My question is from the looks of it, could it be herpes or if not any ideas as to what it might be?

I have attached two pictures, that show that place of my penis.

Thanks!

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

You're tests are definitely negative.  That's correct.


Terri

[JimTr]

Hey,

Really the forum has problem with equality operators... I'll describe it with words:

The values were less and equal of 0.5 in all my tests while tests had a high value of equal or higher than 0.9 in order to be deemed being positive... so I guess I am on the safe side, don't you think?

[JimTr]

Hey again....

the forum eats up characters... the last sentence was:

The values were from  = 0.9 of a test being positive... so I guess I am on the safe side, don't you think?

[JimTr]

Hey,

Thanks for the reply, although a titbit late ;). Results came in today and I am in both HSV-1 and HSV-2 negative in both type-specific tests for each virus (IgM and IgG). The values were from  = 0.9 of a test being positive... so I guess I am on the safe side, don't you think?

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

This website doesn't allow pictures to come through, so sorry, that's not possible to evaluate.  Generally, anytime the terms "magnifying glass" is used in a post to describe a lesions of some kind, I feel it is unlikely to be herpes.  But having said that, there is no way to know for certain if you have herpes or not without proper testing.  Now you've ordered that proper testing, which is good.  Is your partner also being tested?  You only want IgG testing, not IgM, there are many false positives on the IgM and it freaks people out.  Let's see what the IgG testing shows, hopefully for both of you, before we go much further into this.  If you are both negative, then there are no worries.  If the test for HSV 2 is positive at 3.5 or lower, you will need confirmatory testing.  Let's cross that bridge when we come to it, OK?

Terri