Please help--very unique situation!!

[positiveoutlook4u]

Dr.,

I was born in 1982; my mother did not know she had contracted herpes from my father (who was a HIGH risk person). After my mother gave birth to me, she was screaming from the pain (day after) and the doc said she had boils inside and that it must have been trich (sp?). No formal test was done. A week later, I had terrible nlisters all over my lower body; they ruptured and crusted over and healed without a scar. My mother and the doctors thought it was an allergic reaaction to something and nothing came out of it. I had a couple of repeats, nothing too extreme, finally, it all went away for good.

Fast forward to now. My mother had an inexplicable and annoying little rash and told her gyn. She gave her the elisa herpes select and it came out 3.9 for hv2. We were devastated, but it makes sense she got it from him. Me being paranoid, I went and got bloodwork done too. My results came back:

Hsv2 elisa herpes specific: 2.31; img negative
Elisa inhibition: 1.77, 90% + for hsv2.

Doctor, my boyfriend has no symptoms, nor do I; none of my former partners ever had anything either, and of this I'm sure. I have never had an ob. I have 2 questions:

Given the inhibition exam, should I even bother getting retested, or just accept the fact that I have this and have been awfully lucky in suppressing this?

And secondly, more importantly, does it sound like my issue as an infant was an ob and could I have contracted this from mom since she didn't know?

I'm devastated, doctor. Not only for myself, but for mom. And before - share this with my boyfriend, who will possbly think I cheated on him, though I didn't, I need to know. And noone seems knowledgeable or even to care about this! My doctor said, "nah, impossible, you got this from a guy. You and your mom just have this in common. You don't need valtrex. Only dirty and unhealthy ppl get outbreaks. And no need to retest--you definitely have it."

Many thanks for your help--and hopefully, speedy response.

[positiveoutlook4u]

Thank you, Terri. I really appreciate your insight, and believe me, I was livid! After seeing him, I went to planned parenthood and met a gem of a clinician. She looked at mom's and my results and asked me a few questions. I told her about the sores and that I was hospitalized for the first 3 months of my life with pneumonia. I didn't think that was an important thing to mention, but to her, it almost sealed the neonatal infection deal. Also, she said I fall into a strange group of ppl who are neg for hsv1. I told her that must be a mistake because when I was 17, my hsv was out of range but my doctor said it had to be for hsv1 because I was a virgin until my early 20's. She gave an empathetic smile and said "back then, tests weren't too good at differentiating between the two. You were prbably out of range because of your moms hsv2." She also said that since my first ob as an infant was so bad, I prob have had minor obs that I didn't eve notice because I'm otherwise extremely healthy. She said there's no 100% way to tell for sure if it was neonatal but she said its likely to be.
Despite all this, I'm going for the weastern blot. I'm sure it will be +, but the hell with it--at least I can out this to rest. If this is my biggest health problem ever, I'm a lucky girl.

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

This sounds like a classic case of neonatal infection for you, except nothing happened to you except a rash, which is incredibly luck, I might add.  Of course I could be wrong, but the positive ELISA and inhibition assay highly suggest that you have genital herpes.  You could have contracted this from your mom and didn't know it, perhaps no one did.  However, given the level of your ELISA, I think you should have western blot confirmation.  The inhibition assay isn't my favorite always, and the same lab, Quest, can do the western blot.  The test order code is 34534.

Your doctor is so incredibly wrong about outbreaks, I can't begin to tell you.  That was completely inappropriate and not even correct, and if I were you, I would so angry and insulted!  

If your western blot is positive, it doesn't say whether you got this from you mom or from a sex partner, but your story is certainly suspicious!

Terri