My symptoms didn't look quite like the photos of FDE, but the idea that hand-to-genital contact cannot spread HSV is pretty convincing. I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate the info.
Thanks for the help Doctor, I feel quite a bit better.
Indeed the internet can be dangerous for anxious persons with unexplained symptoms. Perhaps you're familiar with Nate Silver, who has become rather famous for his political predictions (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com). He has written a book about statistical issues in everyday life (The Signal and the Noise, Penguin Press, 2012). Here is a quote from it:
"...what might happen if you put a hypochondriac in a dark room with an Internet connection. The more time that you give him, the more information he has at his disposal, the more ridiculous the self-diagnosis he'll come up with; before long he'll be mistaking a common cold for the bubonic plague"
Anxious people tend to be drawn to information that reinforces the anxiety, and to miss the reassuring bits, even if they're more common.
I think I may have nailed the cause for you; a fixed drug eruption from Malarone (a combination of two drugs, proguanil and atovaquone) seems a fair bet. On a quick medical literature search I don't find them mentioned as causes of FDE. However, the well known causes include other drugs that are chemically similar. FDEs typically begin 10-14 days after starting the offending drug, so the timing seems right. If you google FDE (spell it out), you can find lots of pictures. The basic appearance and natural course are pretty much like a burn: painful redness, blistering, then sloughing of the superficial skin to leave a raw, red spot that then heals, often with scab formation. And the genitals are among the most common sites for FDE.
Thank you for the advice; it's very difficult to spend any amount of time on the internet without convincing yourself you are suffering from something. I am not currently on medication, but I was taking malarone for malaria prevention for about a week from Jan 22 through Jan 29. I had forgotten all about that.
Welcome to the forum.
Whatever is going on with the skin of your scrotum, it isn't herpes or any other STD from the massage. HSV is not transmitted by hand-genital contact, especially the sort of brief contact that apparently occurred with your scrotum. Further, initial herpes rarely involves the scrotum and does not cause the sort of skin lesion you describe, and your sexual health clinic provider obviously agrees with me on that. (To say that herpes can be associated with "scabbing and clear discharge" ignores the fac that ANY lesion involving broken skin will scab and often produces "clear discharge".)
While we don't speculate much about non-STD causes of symptoms, I wonder whether you are taking any medications -- and especially if you started treatment with any new drugs in the 1-2 weeks before the skin problem started on your scrotum. Your description is suggestive of a condition called fixed drug eruption, i.e. a localized allergic reaction that can occur with a number of different medications.
Anyway, all the evidence is strongly against herpes or any other STD. You don't need testing for STDs and I recommend you continue unprotected sex with your wife without any worry at all.
Best wishes-- HHH, MD
I guess I should add that she wiped me down with a hot towel after the massage; I don't know if that's a factor in anything.