Hello again Ms Warren
Thank you for your last comment. I did do a final test at 15 weeks and the result was negative. The test was Immunoblot because that was all that was available. Thank you for your perspective and guidance. I intend to move forward with life and put these concerns behind me.
That's OK, you can retest. In my mind, the only downsides of testing are cost, lack of someone to help you interpret the results and 2.6% risk of a false positive. At least that's the percent we see in our patients at the clinic. Of all people who test (and we run about 75-100 per month), about 5.2% of people test in the low positive range for HSV 2. The low positive range is 1.1 to 3.5. Of those, half do not confirm as positive when tested by western blot. So you know, if you get a low positive result, you know you need a confirmatory test.
Best to you.
Terri
Terri,
Thank you very much for your reply. I am quite aware that it is rare for you to say that you don't think that I need to retest as I have ready numerous posts on this forum as well as your handbook and book. I really do appreciate your honest and reflective opinion and do feel that I have received my money's worth from the post. I don't know about relaxing though and do feel that I may still test one last time over this next week or so, expecting nothing to change, and then look forward to putting this behind me forever.
Thanks once again
I am happy to tell you I think your symptoms are NOT due to herpes. First I consider your risk. Given the situation, the risk that you experienced is extremely close to zero. Keep up the good work on having very safe sexual practices. The negative antibody tests confirm the lack of infection. Honestly, given the very low risk of your experience, I don't even think you need to retest at 16 weeks. And if you read back over my posts, you'll find it rarely say that. If you can't relax, you can retest. But I would not expect any change at all from these results.
I wish there would be more I could say about this so you would really feel you got your money's worth from the post but there just isn't more to say about this. The risk is near zero, the symptoms aren't consistent with herpes, the tests are negative. Please put this behind you. You've done all the right things to eliminate herpes from the picture.
Terri