wonder why?

[jockojohnson]

if you test neg  at 4 months at less than .90 does that meen that there is some percentage of hsv in your blood ?why wouldnt results say 0 if you are neg.?and is 4 months conclusive?

[jockojohnson]

thanks howard i appreciate your answers my gp does not give much in the way of eplanations and i dont know the questions to ask and it gets expensive going to the office everytime you have a simple question i get results from tests and he just tells me i am negative .but you can look at them on line and somne of my readings have changed and are going into the red .you would think he would just explain it to me . but he dosent .s o thank y.ou for sharing your knowledge

[HowardH]

The numerical result says nothing about the amount of antibody. All results below 0.90 are truly negative -- and with respect for Fleetwood's obivous knowledge and excellent advice, it isn't because of cross reacting antibody that cause non-zero readings. If the same blood specimen is tested in the same lab 10 times, using different batches of test reagents, it will give 10 different numbers that could vary anywhere from, say, 0.1 to 0.5 to 0.8. Each of these results would be equally negative, and they do not indicate varying levels of antibody of any kind. These variations are built into the technology of almost all ELISA tests for HSV or anything else. The same variation also is the norm in HIV testing, for example.

[Fleetwood20]

The blood tests are for antibodies to HSV. This involves creating antigens which are HSV infected animal liver cells and so forth.

The issue is that as refined as the antigen can be, there will sometimes be antibodies and other proteins in our blood that just stick to the antigen and create a non zero reading. This is perfectly normal and does not mean there is any of the virus in your body.

If you are less than 0.90 after 4 months, you are conclusively negative.