HSV viral culture negative, blood test equivocal - doc says I have herpes!

[rosiec9]

Hi there

Last Monday I had rough, unprotected sex with a guy I recently started seeing (two 1/2 months ago) and later that night felt burning/irritation.  I went to the doc less than 48 hours later and she said I had some lesions on my labia that looked suspicious for herpes.  She did a viral culture and took blood.  The pain/burning continued for five days and then went away.  I had no other "typical" symptoms of a herpes outbreak.

The viral culture was negative.  The blood test results were negative for HSVII but very high positive for HSVI (I knew that would be the case since I have cold sores a couple times a year).  My anxiety comes from the fact that the IgM result was 0.99 - equivocal.  My doctor said that because the lesions looked suspicious (even though the viral culture was negative) and because the lgM result was elevated (though equivocal) and my HSVI result was very high (29.7), she suspects it's an outbreak of HSVI and it was recently contracted genitally.  

This seems really odd to me - a negative viral culture and an "equivocal" lgM result and she's sure I have HSVI on my gentials (and it's recently contracted?)

Here are my results.  Any help deciphering this and other opinions would be really appreciated:

HSV Viral culture with typing- negative
HSV lgM I/II combination - 0.99 (equivocal is 0.91-1.09)
HSV 2 IGG, Type Specific - <0.91
HSV I/II IGG- 29.7

[rosiec9]

Thanks, that was my feeling too.  I realize I have herpes 1 but I was skeptical that it could have been genital, considering the swab was negative.  I got freaked out from the lgm result being - since the doc seemed to think that was evidence that it was indeed genital herpes (hsv1) and a recent infection

[Life360_Dave]

Hi and welcome.  Your test shows negative for hsv2 and swabs are good for showing a positive but with negative are not reliable. Igm is of no value for verifying results. Since your swab did not show positive and your igg was below 1 you dont have hsv2.

To sum this up. Swabs are very reliable for detecting herpes 1 and 2. If the culture did not detect it and you had it done with 48 hours of the lesion it was not herpes. if you tested positive for hsv1 and you did not have a genital breakout of a herpes lesion then it most likely would be from the oral you got as a child.