Worried

[CPR451]

Dear Doctor,

I have been foolish and made a bad choice and now I am worried about having herpes. I have kissed and performed oral and recieved oral sex from a woman who I find later has herpes and I rubbed the top of my penis and penetrated her with just the tip...I have looked up various sites about herpes and they all have symptoms they list that I dont have and there is one site I came upon in which it has an exact symptom I have.....The site states a feeling of pressure in the area below the stomach, and feeling pressure or discomfort around your stomach this symptoms has been happening to me alot once in a while it subsides but then comes back.......I do have itch in the genital area but it is not constant and I have no appetite at all.......I have a few tiny red shiny bumps on the scrotum. No sores showed up, I dont have pain while urinating, no classic symptoms and some sites say you dont have to have any signs to have herpes.......What are the best tests to be used for finding out if one has herpes? What are the advantages and disadvantages? The symptoms I have described above is that a sign of herpes? Or could the feeling of pressure in the area below the stomach, and feeling pressure or discomfort around your stomach be something else? I am freaked out with this experience and am constanly looking for signs of herpes on myself.........Another worry I have is the loss of appetite and I have a red rash around my face near the nose and cheek area and does this have to do with herpes? How long does the symptoms of herpes last on an individiual?

Worried about the stupid choices I have made Please help put my mind at ease if you can    

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

I knew you were sensitive to his age, the main reason I didn't just delete his comment and your reply.

Thanks for the thanks.  I also appreciate your always constructive comments.

HHH, MD

[monkeyflower]

I'm sorry. I know and appreciate your policy on thread jumps, and normally I wouldn't respond. I promise I won't do it again :-) It was his age that sucked me in. I just think school is useless when it comes to health education, and lots of kids are too afraid to talk to their parents about anything related to their genitals or sexuality. Sounds like he has a different experience with his dad, but maybe he didn't know how/what/whether to ask. Besides, he's only a couple of years older than my daughter, and I'd want someone to respond to her if she were scared and didn't feel she had anyone else to ask. So that's my rationale, not that you asked, lol. But anyway, thanks for letting my post stay.

And while I'm at it, I'll just take this opportunity to thank you again for sharing your time, patience, and knowledge with us. I know I've learned so much from you. And your sane, rational, reasonable perspective, openness, and non-judgmental attitude are such a breath of fresh air. Definitely makes this one of the very best health related sites I've seen. :-)

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

I would like to help, but thread jumps--new questions as a comment in someone else's thread--aren't allowed.  Unfair to the original questioner.  I would have deleted your question entirely, but left it out of respect to the time and energy monkeyflower put into her reply.  But I'll have to step in and prohibit an ongoing dialog.  Feel free to start a new thread of your own.  (With respect, I'll ask mf to not respond in such helpful detail in such situations!)

HHH, MD

[monkeyflower]

Your dad was right (I think it's awesome that you felt comfortable asking him, btw :-)). After shaving your pubic hair, it itches like crazy when it grows back in. To avoid that, you can do one of three things: keep shaving it regularly, let it grow back in and leave it alone, or keep it trimmed. However, you've had this itch for months, so I'm guessing the hair has long since grown back and it's probably not hair-related. Maybe jock itch? I don't know, but it sounds like you have an open relationship with your dad. Why not ask him to take you to the doctor, so you can get it checked out? Not only will you get an actual diagnosis, which will help you feel much better, but this would be a great opportunity to ask him/her anything you want about your body.

Just to ease your mind in the meantime, nothing you describe sounds like herpes. Herpes lesions generally last for maybe a week or two, go away entirely, and then come back in the same place over a month or two later (if they come back at all). Red dots and diffuse itching is not herpes. Besides, herpes, like HIV, is a sexually transmitted disease. So if you haven't had sex (although I have to stress that sex isn't just intercourse), then you can't have genital herpes.

And the pictures you see on the internet are during the WORST of an outbreak. Maybe primary outbreaks, since they tend to be the worst. Either way, they're unusually severe, which is why they actually took the pictures. That is NOT most people's experiences with herpes. For most, it's either a mild annoyance or a non-event altogether.

[jonny6292]

hey my names jon an am 14 and i dont know whats wrong with me well ill start by saying in the middle of august 2006 i shaved my pubic hair and the next day or two it was itchy and i asked my dad why? and he said it was becuase the hairs were growing back and he said when the pubic hair starts to grow back it will itch a little bit but a month later while it was still growing back it continued to itch not siverly but it itched so about 3 months later after i stated school it still itched and my pubes were almost startign to look fully grown back but it still itched an i started to get worried now it's been abotu 5or6 motnhs and it's now janurary in the new year and my groin still itches and am so worried and scared then i started to think of what could be wrogn i thought oh maybe aids? but then i used common sense i had never had sex before so i couldn't have aids and my dad and mom dont have aids so i scratched that off my list of what could be wrogn but then it popped into my mind oh my it's genital herpies then i got really scared i even almost almost cried and am so worried doctor cause it's been 5 or six moths off itching all after i shaved mo pubic here and i constanly look at my gorin when i go to the bath room to see if there's any sign of soemthing wrong and i find nothing worng but the itch in the past months it has also stated to itch on my legs to just as much as the itch on my groin almost no sign of herpied no sores no anything excpet ive noticed that if u look really really really close to the head of my penis htere are tiny tiny red dots but u can only see them if u look really really close and there un notice able unless u focus real hard on it then u can see the all around the tip of the head of my penis i know it might soudn wierd but its true and i also noticed that there's tiny red dots on my legs to so i dont know whats going on am so scared though and if its genital herpies or herpies or soemthin pls tell me doc so i can get the thought out of my mind and i just dont want 2 give in 2 the thought that i might have herpies cause ive seen pics of people who have genital herpies and there genitals look even deformed and riddled with sored and open cuts and everthign soem even look like parts of there groin were the soars were looked liek a dark shade of green or soemthing really disturnbign like that and ive never had one of those things happen 2 me except the itch wich on a website i read maybe one of the symptoms of genital herpies so pls tell me what u think.

-jon

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Almost certainly your symptoms are not herpes.  Looking for lists of symptoms on the web is absolutely the worst way to decide whether you might have a particular problem, for 3 reasons:  Many sites list every symptom possible, without indicating which ones are most common; such sites never tell you all the other, more common things that can cause the same symptoms; and they generally don't stress that individual symptoms are much less likely to indicate a problem than combinations of symptoms.

I suppose some people with genital herpes might experience a sense of low abdominal pressure, but only in the presence of other, typical herpes symptoms; I have never seen such a case in my 30+ years in the STD business.  Your anxiety over all this is a far more likely cause of that symptom, and also is the most likely explanation of your poor appetite.  I haven't a clue what is causing the redness around your nose and cheek, but that doesn't sound like herpes anyway.  On top of all this, from your description of the event, you were at low risk for herpes, despite your partner having the infection.

So I suggest just mellowing out and forgetting herpes.  I'll bet your symptoms fade with time.  But if not, or if you remain concern, see a health care provider for proper diagnosis.  If the provider agrees, you can have a type-specific blood test for evidence of HSV-1 and HSV-2 infection (but that should wait until 3 months after the exposure).  However, if that test is positive, it won't explain your symptoms; you would just be a person with asymptomatic herpes plus anxiety.

Good luck-- HHH, MD