HSV-1 Herpes Positive, Oral or Genital?

[gregguy_bf]

Hello,

16 days ago I had unprotected oral sex with a female friend.  She called me the next day to say she might have an STD, because she had what was thought to be yeast infection earlier in the week (which was treated and went away with antibiotics), but woke up with a sore throat.  She was freaked out, and had a follow up appointment already scheduled for the following week.  The sore throat lasted a day, and she didn't have any other symptoms.  After the follow up visit with her doctor, her pap smear was negative for chlamydia and gonorrhea, and she was given a clean bill of health by her doctor.  She also contacted the two recent partners she had, and neither had any symptoms.

I had no symptoms until about 5 days after the initial oral I started getting itchy around my groin, but also had a phantom itch randomly all over my body.  This started making me very paranoid as I was waiting for her test results.  No other STD symptoms at that time, except my groin area felt a little moist.  I thought maybe it was a surface fungal infection, so I started applying Lotrimin to the area.  It helped with the itching, but about 4 days later I started getting a weird tingling on my legs so I stopped using it.  This tingling lasted 24 hours, then went away.

After all of this, I decided to have a full STD panel done.  My IgG test came back positive for HSV-1 at a score of 8.94.  HSV-2 was negative, as was everything except I am waiting on chlamydia and gonorrhea results still.  I asked her about HSV-1 and she's never had a herpes test done.  She said she did not have any cold sores at the time of the oral, and doesn't remember ever having any.  

Two questions:

1. Is there any way to tell how long you've been positive for Herpes 1 based on the result? 8.94 seems very high.
2. Is it possible that I could have contracted genital hsv-1 from this?  

Besides the itching and moist groin, the only other symptoms I've had was some nausea earlier in the week (no vomiting) and yesterday inside my urethra felt like it had a small irritation, but went away overnight.  Otherwise, no discharge, no outbreak or bumps, and it doesn't hurt when I pee.

I have had a lot of anxiety over this encounter, which may be responsible for the nausea and phantom itching.  I had sex with my significant other 3 days ago, and am paranoid maybe I passed something along to her.  She hasn't mentioned any issues so far.

Thanks in advance.

[auntiejessi]

At 14 days post exposure, your Hsv1 result indicates that you had it prior. At a minimum, you can test positive at 2 weeks, but your number would likely be lower. I've seen numbers in the 30s, 40s and 50s, so yours isn't that high, but it's definitely not a new infection.

Statistically, this is an oral infection, but the blood test can only tell you what you have, not where you have it. 67% of people under 50 have oral hsv1 globally, and the vast majority never get symptoms.

Most of the symptoms you have sound like anxiety - random full body itching, for example, and irritation in your urethra that goes  away quickly.

You might have a fungal infection, like yeast, since the lotrimin seems to be helping, but I'd be surprised if you had anything beyond that.

Your partner called in a moment of panic, and set you on a path of your own anxiety.

At most, if you transmitted anything to your regular partner, it would be a yeast infection - that's my guess.

[gregguy_bf]

I should mention that the STD panel was done 14 days after the encounter.