Oral Exposure/Fingering

[Bobby714]

Hey doctors, Thanks for the wonderful job you guys do.
Here is my scenerio-
In long term heterosexual relationship- 14 years. male, early 30s.  No STD history. I am Negative for both HSV1 and HSV2.
3 days ago I engaged in deep kissing with a woman i met only recently.  I also fingered her for a period of time. I would also like to point out that my fingers are prone to having some protruding skin, similar to hangnails, but not quite. I usually bite them off, but on this day, they weren't long enough. No actual bleeding from them tho. (I checked) Not sure if under these "hangnails" are considered open sores? or just newer, thinner skin.
After a period of this, she proceeded to give me unprotected oral for less than a minute. We then showered with more fingering and kissing and she again gave me unprotected oral for less than a minute.
I made sure to note that I did not see any lesions, cold sores or other abnormalities on her mouth, and the length of time of unprotected oral leads me to believe that my risk for genital HSV1 infection is probably quite small.

1) Would you suggest I even bother testing for HSV1 if I don't have any outbreaks within the first week?
Again, I am NEGATIVE for HSV1, both because i have never had cold sores and I was previously tested via Herpeselect and that showed negative.

2) worried about contracting HSV2 via fingering in the form of herpetic whitlow. What is the possibility of contracting this via fingering? Obviously people manual masturbation all the time, but is herpetic whitlow a concern if I had hangnails?  Is the length of time fingering indicative?

3) Outside of NGU and Chlymdia, do I have any other potential exposure to any other STDs?  Is it safe to have unprotected sex w my long term woman again?

4) At the time of my exposure, I had a cold. (common variety as far as i can tell). Does the fact that my immune system is suppressed change any possibility of expose for any of the above STDs?
Thanks
Bob

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Not only have I not seen this personally.  In 30 years there has not been a single such case in my STD clinic -- and the clinic sees about 14,000 patients each year.  And to my knowledge there are no reports of it in the medical literature.  Even in health works, herpetic whitlows are rare -- even rarer these days, with increased use of gloving, but such cases were always uncommon even in the pre-gloving days.

[Bobby714]

Thanks for your reply Doctor. Just a quick follow up question.
I have read that Herpetic Whitlow usually occurs by either health workers or by fingers exposed to HSV2. Are these events rare?  You stated you have never seen a case of Herpetic Whitlow from fingering an HSV2 infected individual, so I assume my chances are pretty remote?
Then out of curiousity, how do herpetic whitlow happen anyways?

Thanks Doctor for all your help.

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Welcome to the STD forum.  My replies will be brief, since the identical questions have been asked hundreds of times.

Fingering carries little if any risk for STD transmission.  Kissing even less; in fact, if an infection can be transmitted by kissing, it isn't considered an STD.  That applies to oral herpes.  And even with open sores on the fingers, I have never heard of anyone getting an STD of a finger!  That's regardless of cuts, hangnails, etc.  To your questions:

1) Definitely no need for testing.

2) I have never heard of this happening.  Even if you knew for certain your partner had genital HSV-2, I wouldn't worry about it.

3) No risk for any STD; see above.

4) Having a cold makes no known difference.

Not to be cute, but they call them STDs because you have to have sex to get or transmit them.  For disease transmission purposes, you didn't.  All is well.

Regards--  HHH, MD