Hypochondriatic about Herpes, long story please help

[NickN12]

Sorry this is really really long, but i really have to tell the whole story to get this off my chest! I'm posting the rest of this in replies

Oh man, where to start…This year has tested me like I’ve never been tested before and this struggle needs to end.  So, coming into college everything was wonderful, the school and campus is beautiful and perfect for me.  I met a wonderful girl who I became involved with within a few weeks of school starting and we were perfect for each other.  I would say life was as good then as it’s been ever in my life.  And I wish it could’ve stayed that way.
In the beginning of September I started to get a cold sore.  I’ve had them before but I dislike them like most other people.  I was really diligent in not touching it, however, I usually put vitamin e on them and I did not have any with me at college.  I tried a variety of different little remedies and it sorta worked but I’m not really sure, and this was the beginning of the problem.  The cold sore almost froze in the stage where it bubbles up.  Every day for 4 straight weeks I would rush up to the mirror and look at my lip and it stayed the exact same.  I was dumbfounded.  Was it actually a cold sore?  Was it contagious?  Did my lip always look like this and I’d never looked at it in a mirror this closely before.  I wasn’t sure.  Throughout this whole cold sore ordeal I decided not to mention it to this girl because I figured that even though we were both into each other a lot (not in a relationship yet) it was something that I’d rather not have to tell her about.  Plus we were going so well I figured it was fine and this cold sore would clear up.  But it didn’t.  Every day I would make up excuses as to why I couldn’t hang out and when we did hang out it was in groups.  I was worried about it being contagious and didn’t want to risk spreading it to her or to other parts of our bodies.  This of course was a huge mistake.  We still talked and I thought it would be alright.  The cold sore was really starting to wear on me though.  It was always on my mind and I was always thinking “my life would be perfect if I didn’t have this lip issue.”  Finally, in October I started feeling that maybe it was some sort of scar.  I saw a doctor and she said she didn’t think it was anything but gave me acyclovir just in case.  I started making an effort to hang out with this girl and again, but this time she was the one who was always “busy”.  In late October she finally told me she just wanted to be friends.  I was broken.  Maybe it was because I had never been involved with a girl where it didn’t end on my own terms.  But it was more because a cold sore cost me what I think was the perfect girl.  One stupid cold sore that may not have even existed and was a total figment of my imagination.  

[NickN12]

So to clarify, I won't be able to transmit HSV 1 from my lip down to my genital area because I've had HSV1 for so long?

[gracefromHHP]

you have a well established oral herpes infection . you aren't going to contract hsv1 genitally. also your genital symptoms don't sound herpes related either.

really, your anxiety is the real issue here.  do yourself a favor and get some professional counseling this summer while home from school so you can deal better with stress and anxiety!!!  

grace

[NickN12]

Because the doctor told me you can contact hsv 1 or 2 on my genitals. I was only at risk for contacting oral herpes on my genitals. Therefore a blood test would only tell me I have the antibodies for oral herpes which I already know

[shipwrecked]

Why not just go get tested for HSV 1 & 2?  

[NickN12]

To give a context I would still occasionally check myself and make sure nothing was there.  Well two weeks ago, on Thursday night I kinda checked myself while going to the bathroom.  While pulling the foreskin down (uncircumsized) I noticed a small dark mark on the foreskin when it was straightened out.  I’m not sure I would call it a scab because it didn’t feel like anything when I touched it and it wasn’t painful in any way but that’d be the best way to describe it.  There was also another paler brown and really thin segment of what was kinda scab like right underneath the head at the same orientation of the other mark.  So when the skin was all bunched up near the head they were almost combined.  I freaked out to say the least.  The next morning I checked and it was still there.  I decided to call the school doctors once again, but they had no appointments and said they would see me on Monday.  The scab was gone by Monday.  There was nothing to see.  Now I have only had sexual intercourse with one girl and that was about 1 year and a half ago.  I was her first partner as well so there is absolutely no chance of genital herpes.  That would mean, if that was herpes on my penis it would have to be the same strain of virus as oral herpes because it came from oral sex, meaning that a blood test would be useless because the antibodies for oral herpes would show up regardless.  I am once again left in a state of uncertainty as to whether or not I have herpes.  Now I am an athlete and partake in daily intensive weight lifting and running.  The doctor said that there is a chance it was just from the constant rubbing produced from that.  But it just doesn’t comfort me.  The best way to describe my current state of mind is tortured.  The “scabs” never hurt and I never noticed any sort of blisters before that at all and I know I had been checking myself.  There was zero discharge or any other symptom a herpes scab might have.  And I had never seen any sort of scab like this before.  I know if there had been one I would’ve seen it because it was obvious.  There was no itchiness or anything like that.  The only other “symptom” would be I was sort of sick when I noticed this.  The doctor also said sometimes there a little infections down there that come from sweat being trapped by the uncircumsized foreskin.  But I just can’t convince myself otherwise.  I’m am so tired of this constant paranoia.  I am so frustrated that I cannot live the perfect life I’d be living if this cold sore ordeal had never happened.  I am so tired of being a hypochondriac about this because its silently eating me alive.  I want to live in a peaceful state of mind and I want to forget about any ideas that I have genital herpes.  The problem is I can’t because I had this scab and that could be a symptom.  What I struggle with the most is the idea that I’d pass it on to someone else (if it was herpes) and I’d be THAT guy.  And I was feel so horrible if I did that too.  I want this mental struggle to end and I want to live life again.
If you read all of this thank you so much for taking your time.  So to recap, I have been involved in zero sexual activity in 7 months, and that was briefly participating in oral sex, when I had no cold sore, only when I thought I might.  There has never been a little scab thing like this before as far as I have noticed, and it was in a very obvious spot so I think I would’ve.  Unless this singular symptom I talked about screams herpes please don’t tell me how it could be because that will just freak me out.  I just really want some advice and suggestions as to what it may have been and that can help me get over this and forget about so that I can go live my life like I was at the beginning of college.

[NickN12]

But then, I cycled back into my paranoia that I still had a cold sore nonetheless and I had gotten off lucky.  Again, I checked my lip everyday and I swear it was always itchy and burning.  The paranoia was eating me alive.  However, I somehow gained a confidence in about mid December that I didn’t have a cold sore (I know it’s weird).  For about one month I lived in mental peace…until my mom mentioned that part of my lip where my cold sores form was looking red again (she knew the whole cold sore story and told me that my lip was always irritated looking before all this) and it sent me into a downward spiral.  I freaked out that I was getting a cold sore.  Then while rubbing the itchy area one day, I used the bathroom about 30 minutes after rubbing my lip and I did not wash my hands before hand.  I once again freaked out that I had just transmitted herpes from my mouth to my genitals.  I freaked out and I had the whole horrible experience all over again.  And yet, the cold sore never developed and neither did anything else.  Coming back from winter break I started to cheer up.  I was no longer worried about genital herpes but I once again fell into a horrible paranoia about my lip remaining contagious.  I was so close to being perfectly happy again! If I just wasn’t worried about my lip my life would be care free.  I kept going on the internet and tried to find an explanation as to why my lip looked as it did (only noticeable when a few inches from a mirror).  I read one blog entry of a guy who had oral herpes and had never had sex because he for some reason (no logical connection) thought he had genital herpes.  I kind of chuckled and thought, “good thing that isn’t me.”  But I was wrong, within a week or so I fell back into my horrible fear that I had genital herpes.  The head of my penis felt uncomfortable for a little while, but I had experienced this feeling many times before and I should’ve been able to shake it off.   But I had become paranoid I had herpes within my urethra because I had read about it on the internet.  And this was even though I displayed no symptoms and this is why the head felt uncomfortable.  This went on and on.  And it was horrible.  I swear what I was feeling was all mental because it wouldn’t feel that way until I thought about it. Anyhow this continued on and on and I was always trying to convince myself that there is simply no way I had herpes.  The last time I participated in any sexual activity was way back in November with that one girl I hooked up with and I had displayed no symptoms except for an uncomfortable feeling in my penile head.  And it simply wasn’t happening.  I was a full blown hypochondriac and it was making life really tough.  I had become exactly what the guy was whose blog post I read.   Anyhow, I ended up being with a few girls over the past month.  I had never been so nervous hooking up with a girl before, I was terrified that if we ended up having sex I would transmit herpes to them and then I would never be able to forgive myself.  We never ended up doing any sort of activity that involved my penis in any way.  One thing that did come from this was a comfort that my lip is not contagious.  Neither developed any cold sores, and I had kissed them on multiple different occasions.  However, my horrible fear of genital herpes remained.  And then suddenly, I was able to kick it.  This was probably three weeks ago.  I gained a confidence that I didn’t have anything at all and I was ready to live life normally again.  But this was so short lasted.  

[NickN12]

To this day it is my biggest regret of my life not itching that cold sore so that it formed all the way and scabbed over and disappeared, but there is nothing I can do now.  Anyhow, my lip had started to itch and burn on and off throughout the month of October and I was becoming downright paranoid about a cold sore forming.  Everyday I leaned over to the mirror and thought to myself that I could see it coming back…but it didn’t.  I went to the doctor again and she said she didn’t think it was contagious.  So the weekend after that appointment I went to a party (this was the first week of November) and I hooked up with a girl.  This was the beginning of the worst terror of my life.  She briefly performed oral sex on me and then decided she didn’t want to.  Nonetheless her mouth had touched my genitals for a moment.  The next morning I noticed that the inside of my mouth felt almost raw, similar to how it feels when start to get an ulcer or canker sore.  I know canker sores aren’t contagious but I became paranoid that it could be a cold sore inside the mouth which sometimes happens.  It’s pretty illogical I guess.  I can be 99% sure that was from the pressure of our lips against our teeth.  Nonetheless I became horribly paranoid that I now had genital herpes.  I checked myself everyday for about a week until I noticed a series of white dots that I had not noticed before.  I freaked out and looked up herpes pictures and symptoms and noticed the similarities.  I was horrified.  Immediately I started feeling itching everywhere down there and I had to frequently urinate and even developed what felt like a fever on and off.  I almost positive these symptoms were 100% mental.  I finally worked up the courage to go see a doctor.  She looked at them and said that because they were painless it most likely wasn’t anything.  I was slightly comforted but still very worried the doctor was wrong.  She wasn’t.  The dots were a form of PPP (Pearly Penile something).  I found pictures matching exactly what I had.  I still have these dots 7 months later and they have not changed one bit.  I was so relieved.