Oral herpes autoinoculation

[spacemans]

Hi fellow herpes suffers, I can't believe I am saying this but I have recently caught oral herpes. on 6/2 I started feeling alittle bit sick and getting shivers... by 6/3 I was really feverish and had alot of pain swallowing, on 6/4 I woke up with 2 small zit like bumps on the middle of my lips. so defintely herpes :( :(... makes me sick to my stomache.

6/5 the bumps were even bigger and today 6/6 i went to urgent care and the doctor agreed with cold sores and that i may have strep throat too (?) as so prescibed me azithromycin 250mg for the strep and acyclovir 400 mg for the cold sores... i am also using abreva on the sores

my main question is that i did something really stupid. on the day I woke up with my first little outbreak of bumps. which is 6/4... I decided to take a shower and at that point did not realize I had small bumps on my lips. My memory is not 100% clear as I was very out of it from the fever but I may have touched my face/lips a couple of times during the shower.

at one point i decided i wanted to clean my penis and soaped my hands up for 20-30 seconds and then washed them off with hot water... but did not dry.... I am pretty certain at this point i didnt touch my face after soaping my hands up but am not 100% sure. After I got out of the shower and realized I had new bumps on my lips... I freaked.. :(

my questions are:
1) Could i have autoinoculated myself doing this?
2) If so, how soon would the new bumps show up and would the symptoms and sequence be the same as my oral herpes outbreak?
3) do you guys agree with or have anything else i can do to help speed up the healing of my current sores?

so sad,
Spaceman

[gracefromHHP]

many things can cause those symptoms which is why proper follow up and testing is always a good idea :)

If this is oral herpes, you can learn to control ob's faster when you get them. if it isn't oral herpes, then you can find out what it is and treat that too. Not many of us make it to the old folks home without oral herpes, just if you are one of the small percentage that gets obvious cold sores, it's very annoying to deal with them :(

[spacemans]

will do... but i am pretty sure i have herpes due to how sick I was during the first outbreak and how it followed typical initial herpes symptoms: swollen glands, trouble swallowing, bad breath, bad fever symptoms, really large bumps on my lips.

Perhaps because during both outbreaks i took acyclovir , that's why there was no crusting? a bit strange

but better to get it confirmed. it would be great if it wasn't herpes.
I will update when i have more information............. thanks grace and  Mistakeguy789!

[gracefromHHP]

hard to tell if these are herpes going on or something else like impetigo. if you get another recurrence within the next few weeks, be seen promptly and ask for a lesion culture

scratching your butt through clothing is not an issue at all.

[spacemans]

thanks guys for all the help, its been a week now since my 2nd outbreak began, the bumps are almost back down to normal and are healing. strangely no scabs again at all, just white bumps/blisters that fall off leaving red skin and are turning into red/whitish spots

can i be pretty certain i cannot autoinocculate myself now since I am quite sure this is my 2nd outbreak? (even though it occurred 3 weeks after my first ob)

the reason i ask is that i had another little incident:
i accidently scratched my butt for a few seconds through my boxers and got worried I may have touched my lips in the previous few minutes before i scratched myself.   i realize that you cant really pass herpes that way but I am worried I may have made a tiny cut in my skin from scratching and something could have happened because i still have the remnants of the outbreak on my face.

So I ran to the bathroom , washed my hands with soap, then disinfected the area with 96% ethyl alcohol using a paper towel. which was probably stupid and could have increased my risk of getting genital autoincoulation by continuing to mess with my skin. was there any risk with this incident?

also, do hand sanitzers containg 60% ethyl alcohol kill herpes? the articles I have found on the net go back and forth on that. i have been trying to use it at work and at home when i accidently touch my face to prevent spreading.

Thank again and again!

[gracefromHHP]

putting a bandaid over a cold sore is meaningless. the virus sheds from the cold sore and also the oral area so as long as you aren't kissing your partner or performing oral sex on them, it's not an issue.

[spacemans]

Unfortunately I am Out of the country with my partner so it will be difficult. I was able to get some acocylvir from the local pharmacy yesterday though.

I wanted to ask: is it ok for my partner and I to have sex during this outbreak?

We did not be kiss or doing any oral sex of course, when we had sex... And I wore a small bandage covering the outbreak area... Lastly, we both washed our hands before we began everything....

Is that ok to do?

Thanks :)