Primary Herpetic Infection in Adult, Seeking Info

[NowLearning]

I am 36 and my wife is 33.  A little over two weeks ago my wife and I made a bad decision while under the influence of alcohol (Let this be a lessen to everyone!)  At a party we were both kissing another girl.  My wife and I do not have any history of cold sores, however we have never been tested for HSV.

4 or 5 days later, my wife noticed that the tip and some of the top of her tongue was having a bad burning feeling and she had some red taste buds.  This pain lasted for about 5 days and finally subsided. The following day she noticed what looked like canker sores in the roof of her mouth so she went to the dentist. The dentist ruled it out as canker sores and the tongue as nothing.  When I looked at it, there were 5 or 6 sores in the roof of her mouth.  Those healed in a couple of days and she has been fine now for a few days (Just after two weeks since the possible exposure).  

On to me:  4 days after she started with the burning tongue, mine did the EXACT same thing.  It started as 2 painfully swollen taste buds and quickly moved to a burning tongue. Icewater and mouthwash helped  I also had something in the roof of my mouth. 7 days since my symptoms started, my mouth feels almost back to normal but I have what appear to be healing lesions on my tongue.

Neither of us had any other symptoms aside from maybe being tired.

From what I have looked at online, it sound like a primary adult oral herpes outbreak. Since we are both nearly healed it will be impossible to get a definite test done right now.

My questions -
#1 Does it sound like this is the case.
#2 If we both have it orally, what is our likely hood of recurrence?
#3 Do we always need to use condoms now for sex?
#4 Do we need to use condoms for oral sex or is it difficult to self infect ourselves since we likely were infected with the same strain?

Any other info you can add is greatly appreciated while we are learning how to deal with this.  The web is full of mis-information.
Thank you.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Sorry, we do not look at photos or other web sites on this site.  Nothing more to add.  EWH

[NowLearning]

A better link that actually has a description is:
http://www.doctorspiller.com/intraoral_herpes.htm#Herpetic_gingivitis
About halfway down the page.

Have you seen anything like that on a tongue before?

[NowLearning]

I've had canker sores all my life on the insides of my lips and gums, especially when I had braces as a teen and got bumped in the mouth.  Those seem to be pretty obvious, shallow, round sores.  There has been nothing like that on my tongue, mine looks a lot more like this:

http://www.doctorspiller.com/images/Aids/HerpesOnTongue.jpg

Although mine isn't as bad.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

What you have sounds like a problem called aphous ulcers, the cause of which is unknown.  the best approach, should they recur is for you to then have them looked at by your doctor or perhaps even a dentist.  EWH

[NowLearning]

Just an update and question - This weekend which was a little over a month since my initial symptoms, I am having the same symptoms again (Started out as 2 or 3 random swollen taste buds) and progressed to a painful burning tongue (not as bad as before) and it's coated white again as well.  It started with the 2 or 3 swollen papillae which hurt, then the burning, then irritated papillae all over the tongue which could be seen, white coating, and then 2 or 3 concentrated spots that were more irritated than the rest.  Again no sores on the lips or gums.  I spoke with a clinician on the phone as we were out of town at a friends wedding, and she said without seeing it they couldn't really give me any advice.  Today which is the first day I've been back home, it's nearly normal again so there's  nothing to show them.  I accept that it's likely not herpes still but this seems like a recurrence of symptoms I've never had in my life.  What can I ask the doctors when I go in to look for?  Thank you.

[NowLearning]

We have both completely healed now - but every indication on line that I have found is that this indeed was very probably a primary HSV infection.  My tongue had very swollen fungiform papillae and was very painful for 3 or 4 days, and then it was coated for a few days after (which has now resolved).  My tongue looked just like some pics I have found of a HSV infection of the tongue, although it never progressed to canker sore looking lesions like I have seen on some.

[NowLearning]

Thank you doctor for your information.  The several lesions on the roof of my wifes mouth certainly looked like intra-oral herpes (white sores with red borders on the hard palette) sores, but I'll be happy to know that they weren't.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Still unlikely.  But, if you have HSV at one site, the infection is not liable to be spread to other parts of the body once the initial infection starts to heal.  EWH

[NowLearning]

Oh - and by the way, Her symptoms were closer to 8 days total (tongue burning, red swollen taste buds, and lesions on hard pallet)  and mine is just clearing up finally today which puts me at around 8 days as well.  Lots of sites I have looked at have mentioned that many primary infections in adults can be intra-oral only, but maybe that is really not common for a primary in an adult?  I know it's somewhat rare in and of itself for mid-thirties people to pick up a primary infection.

[NowLearning]

Thank you for your quick reply.  I am just trying to make sure that there is no way we could make a bad decision worse.  If this is a primary infection of Oral HSV 1 or 2, wouldn't it still be possible for us to pass it to other areas of our bodies since we wouldn't have many antibodies built up?  Wouldn't this take months?  I just don't want to be hasty, resume our normal sex lives, and have regrets that now we have the problem genitally as well.  We do want to have kids at some point (probably soon given our ages!)  Also it did go beyond kissing (oral sex) I don't want to leave that out.  I was trimming the original post to fit the 2000 character limit and inadvertantly trimmed that information out.

I realize HSV is a common thing and am prepared to live with it due to our own actions, however what would be worse it to contract it genitally, in our eyes, or fingers due to us being reckless with each other (our ourselves, auto inoculation) when we could possible wait a few months.

What caused me to start suspecting HSV was this web page: http://www.herpesdiagnosis.com/labialis.html where it talks about primary oral infection.

Also, my tongue has groups of red swollen papillae surrounded by a white border that "look" like a healing HSV infection. (Again, no room on the original post).

Thank you again.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

Welcome to the Forum.  I’ll try to address your concerns.  The symptoms you describe do not suggest oral herpes to me.  While oral HSV can cause sores within the mouth, there are typically sores on the lips and outside of the mouth at the same time as well.  In addition, initial HSV would typically last longer than five days.  it is far more likely that what you are experiencing is some other, community acquired, self-limited, non-STD virus which could be from the women you each kissed or which could be something that one of you picked up elsewhere and gave to the other.  In answer to your questions:

1.  See above - no.
2.  if you have HSV-1 in the mouth (this is unlikely), your chances of recurrences at this time are greater than 50/50.
3.  No.  If this is HSV it is oral and therefore no concern about genital sex.  More likely however is that it is not HSV and therefore no risk.  Finally, if you both turned out to have HSV-1 you would not give it to each other because you already have it.  No matter how you slice it, there is no need for condoms.
4.  See 3 above.

Regarding other sources of information, much information about herpes can be obtained by accessing excellent informational web sites such as the one run by the American Social Health Association (disclosure, Dr. Handsfield and I are both on the Board of Directors of ASHA).

Hope this helps.  EWH