Biokit low positive..was told by doctor who administered it?

[Rocky1981]

Hello Dr..
hoping you can help me, i recently was tested for HSV 1 & 2 type specific AB..results for 1 came back + 3.94, fine...however results for 2 came back 1.98. i went & had the BioKit done..well the doctor pricked my finger did the test, notice that the confirm dot had a 2nd barely there not even a completed faint dot...the doctor said that it was  a "low positive" & since it wasn't a strong positive that it could very well be in fact a negative & that i would have to come back in 6 wks to take it again. my questions are:

1-have you ever came across this type of "rare" result as the doc who gave it to me did?

2-the doc that performed it told me that he has seen a few cases like that, and when the patient came back for the test the 2nd time that it was neg (honestly i didn't know if he was telling me that cause he thought i wanted to hear it or what)?

3-my partner is also going to get tested this week, he is trying to locate his results from 4 months ago which came back positive for HSV1 but negative for HSV2...

can you kindly clear some of this confusion up for me thanks?
i appreciate it

~best
ugh

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome back to the Forum.  I have also looked at some of your posts on the HSV Community since we last interacted.  Your repeat IgG test results do not surprise me. They are essentially the same as before an once again are in the range where false positives for HSV-2 are at least as common as true positives.  The idea of getting a Biokit is a good one and I am sorry to hear that those results were equivocal.  It is hard to know what to do with the Biokit results -typically if this is positive and the HerpeSelect assay is positive it means that HSV-2 infection is present.  I am not familiar with a faintly positive Biokit assay.  At his time you need a Western blot from the University of Washington.  I suspect your doctor’s lab offers it but because it is a specialty test, he may not have seen it before.  When it is ordered, please be aware that typically it takes several weeks for the results to come back.

Also, just to be clear, you are not taking any sort of antiviral medicine are you?  this can sometimes delay the development of antibodies.  

Hope this helps.  Please let me know when your Western Blot result is back.  EWH

[Rocky1981]

just to add i've been turning towards the western blot test as the final confirmaiton...however not sure if i can go sooner or should i wait since the doc who performed the BioKit test told me to wait 6 wks...i also mentioned it to my primary docs office & they told me that they do the western blot but the one for lymes disease they never heard of the 1 for HSV2?
thanks again for your time..

still praying=)

[Rocky1981]

i wasn't on anitbiotics when i 1st intially took the blood work, then the 2nd time that i took the test i had just completed them since i had bronchitis, but i'm sure the antibiotics were in my body still fighting the infection i do..can this do anything to throw off the result?
i am still hopeful that there is some other type of reason why these results are low positive, perhaps some kind of study that has not been done yet. since i've never had any OBs, symptoms, anything, i wouldn't have even know about this if i hadn't requested it in my STD test.  i'm just hoping that this is all due to the positive antibodies of 3.94 that came back for the HSV1.
do i have to wait 6 wks to take the WB like the doctor had requested for the BioKit or can i go sooner?
any help is much appreciated. and again i appreciate your time in answering my questions i know you are a busy man.

~still optimistic!

[Edward W Hook, MD]

No, the antibiotics you took would not effect your HSV blood tests.  As far as when to test, this has been going on a while but sometimes it takes a while for the western Blot to develop full reactivity.  I tend to agree with your doctor that it would be best to wait a few weeks,.  EWH

[Rocky1981]

Thank you Dr. Edward...i will wait 6 wks before going ahead with the WB, I've never had any OBs or symptoms so hopefully I am in the percentile of a false positive, wish me luck.

thanks again for your advice.

~Still Praying=)