Extremely nervous about possible Genital Herpes infection

[raj9111]

First of all I would like to thank you Dr. Warren for providing invaluable information on Herpes..

Details -
I'm a male in mid 30s - was on a cruise trip late November '12 and ended up having unprotected sex with someone I met (think 12/26/12), she also performed oral sex on me. After a couple of days at the end of the trip, I woke up with an itchy throat and felt fatigued. I also noticed one red spot on the tip of the penis. After a week, I went to the doc and he gave me a steroid shot and put me on antibiotics for Z-Pak. In Mid Jan, I felt some itching in the genitals area and a slight burning sensation where the thigh meets the leg. I read it could be "jock itch" so applied Lotrimin. I asked the family doctor about whether I had a STD infection. He looked at it and shrugged it off saying Herpes causes painful blisters and sores. He decided to go ahead with the bloodwork for STDs anyways - this was my first time ever doing it. The next day he called me and to my horror said "Looks like you have a Genital Herpes Infection" as my HSV 2 IgG reading was 2.86 H. The doc gave me a prescription of Valtrex which I have yet to take as I read some posts on this forum that it skews the results.

- I read that it's more likely for a herpes infected man to pass it to a woman than the other way around. Is it possible that this one isolated incident could have passed the HSV 2 to me?

- I'm nearing 4 months to the date I think the infection might have occurred. So if you think it sounds like a genital Herpes infection, should I get a Western Blot done?

- I've also been experiencing some itching in the anus and the scrotum; not sure if they're stress induced. I haven't seen any visible sores or blisters on the penis itself. Also in between I had gone to a dermatologist as I had a reddish skin inflammation (been there for a while) just below my lips. He diagnosed it as eczema so wasn't sure if I had the same in my groin area too?

Thanks much

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

I doubt that you will get a lab to draw your blood for the kit, but they might.  If you call the clinic to have us order the test, you don't deal with the kit.  We would order it at a Quest lab near you.

Terri

[raj9111]

Hi Terri..thanks so much for your response.

No, I've never been tested for HSV before. Having said that, I can't remember in a long long time if I ever had unprotected sex or had any symptoms. But then from whatever I read, maybe it was asymptotic if I do have HSV-2..Keeping my fingers crossed at this point.

I shall call into your clinic for the Western Blot. Hope with the kit, I can go to a LabQuest or any other provider and don't have to go to my family doctor and do the convincing!

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

I think a western blot is very appropriate.  Your HSV 2 test results are in what we call the "low positive" range.  At your number, there is likely a 50-50 chance that you are truly infected with HSV 2.  

Have you ever been tested for HSV before?  If not, there is no way to know if this is new infection or an old infection that has gone unnoticed.

But first a foremost, you need a confirmatory test.  You can get the western blot by order a kit from the University of Washington directly, or we can order it for you through our clinic in Portland.  I personally don't recommend any other confirmatory tests at this point.

The symptoms that you describe to me don't, by themselves, sound particularly like herpes, no.  

Terri