Is this herpes or something else?

[lovely3333]

I had unprotected sex with an unknown herpes status guy 1 month ago. At the two week mark, I notice vaginal irritation after my cycle. Like I had a post-cycle yeast infection or bad tampon allergy, both common for me. On top of that, I made the ill decision to try cocaine for the first time the night before and it made have cold-symptoms. I decided to head to the urgent care - serology panel plus Rocephin IM and Doxycycline. Neither drug have I had before, hx of drug allergies to antibiotics, etc. I felt very nauseous after the doxy and had butt pain from the rocephin. Some swollen neck lymph nodes by the side I snorted the drug. Now, I am having very intense anxiety about possible herpes.   I also started having a burning sensation where my buttock meets my leg. It is almost constant and it radiates down the back of my legs, and it gets worse daily. The burning also appears in my armpits, face, eyes, and back which is worse with sweat. sweat made my buttocks crease burn like fire. I went to my obgyn and PCP for multiple exams. Obgyn did cultures twice (negative x2) and looked around and said the inside of my vagina looked like I had an allergy again. Did a visual exam. No sores found on any visit.  told him about the burning sweat on the crease of my butt, and both gave me steroid/antifungal creams which did nothing. The burning radiates from my buttocks to the groin, to my crotch, to my back, and gets worse with sitting or clothing touching, drinking small amt of alcohol and better with standing, changing position, or sitting in a bath. My legs ache but worse on the side I had the injection. There is NO RASH and NO SORES. Serology was all negative or non-reactive at 2 weeks, including IgM and IgG, both "non-reactive". I am having panic attacks at night now and my throat feels tight off/on all day.

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

I don't use the IgM test so I have no thoughts about your question.  
I would strongly suggest that you make an appointment with a therapist to try to deal with this from another point of view.

This is my final post on this thread.

Terri

[lovely3333]

Ok, so 3 docs have told me I don't have herpes based upon exams and labs. Have you ever seen anyone IGM negative at two weeks post exposure with no lesions be positive later? I have nerve irritation as the main symptom after immediate terrible feeling after cocaine use. Seriously, I may start having panic attacks again because of this.

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

Well, he is wrong about the IgM.  But he likely would be able to identify a lesion if there was one there.

Terri

[lovely3333]

The gyno has looked and looked. There's nothing. All labs so far are completely negative. My PCP completely  dispelled the idea of herpes because he's seen so much of it and said the IgM is going to be positive in the immune response window. He said this is nerve irritation from cocaine, regardless of it being a minute amount, and that he's seen a similar reaction before. I'm being treated with steroids and Lyrica. So far, the pain and anxiety are diminishing. Still feel very "off". Have accidentally scalded myself with hot drinks and hot bath water because I can't tell how hot things are.

[Feb123]

Are outbreaks inside vagina where only the gyno would be able to see?

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

Good.

Terri

[lovely3333]

Thank you. This is helpful. It calms my fears a bit.

[Terri Warren, RN, Adult Nurse Practitioner]

You certainly are having a difficult time with multiple issues - unprotected sex with a new partner, injection in the butt of a medicine that traditional hurts quite a bit, an oral drug with known nausea side effects (and often causing a subsequent yeast infection for women), a known history of allergies to antibiotics, pain in the lower part of your body and a first experience with a drug that worries me greatly in the population for so many reasons, particularly cardiac issues at the time of use.  No wonder you are having panic attacks!  I think most of us would have huge anxiety in your situation, so you are not reacting abnormally.  The trick is getting a handle on your situation so you can get your life back on track, right?

So good to know a few things:  1) your baseline antibody testing was negative for HSV 2) your doctor isn't finding anything on exam and more importantly, you've had no lesions 3) the area in which you are having irritation is not normally where someone would have a first infection (it would be more genital).  

I honestly don't think at this point that you acquired genital herpes infection, but as you know, your antibody test at this point is not accurate.  Please please please don't have IgM antibody testing done again.  There are so many false positives on this test and I don't want you to get scared.

If you were our patient, we would strongly recommend that you have at least one session with some kind of good therapist to talk these issues out a bit.  

Hope this is helpful.

Terri

Terri