I think it's in your best interest to inform any potential sexual partner of your current situation regarding herpes. Why? For starters if you are drawn to that person emotionally and the partner is a potential companion it would be very problematic to tell them after the fact. Secondly look at it from the other persons perspective. Unfortunately talk is cheap when it comes to these responses i'm giving you, because quite frankly if you tell a potential partner of your status that person may call it splitsville before engaging in any sexual actvity. Understandably that is the primary fear of informing potential partners of your STD situation. However at the end of the day, I think informing people of your virus will certainly break the ice and perhaps take stress off the situation. All of this talk is coming from the assumption you have genital herpes, but based on your description it seems as if you don't, but i'm just playing devil's advocate.
My answer no. 4, second sentence, should read "But around 20-25% of sexually active single people have genital herpes, not 'the vast majority'."
HHH, MD
Thanks for your reply. You stated "But around 20-25% of sexually active single people do not have genital herpes" which would mean that 75% do which would mean the majority, did you mean to say that 25% do have it?
I was under the impression that HSV could only be transmitted by skin to skin contact and not saliva, if I have an outbreak inside the nose how would it ever be transmitted?
Apparently you didn't see my clarification before you posted your follow-up comment. I meant 20-25% DO have genital herpes.
Re-read my reply, response to question 1. It is possible that people with recurrent HSV-1 involving the nose might also have periods of subclinical shedding of virus in the mouth. This would be similar to people with recurrent genital sores on the labia, who also have subclinical shedding from the cervix. To my knowledge, it has not been studied for HSV-1 around the mouth and face. Therefore, I cannot say whether you could transmit HSV-1 by exposure to your mouth. As I said in my original reply, I suspect the risk is low, but there is no way to know for sure.
HHH, MD