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Men's Health
Genital herpes: The painful facts about a tricky virus
- By Harvard Health Publishing Staff, Harvard Health
There are two main types of herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections, HSV-1 and HSV-2. Generally speaking, HSV-1 is responsible for those annoying cold sores that can pop up during times of stress or lack of sleep. Genital sores are usually caused by HSV-2. Many people don’t realize that HSV-1 can cause genital ulcers as well, though these tend to be less severe and less likely to recur.
It can take as little as a few days and up to a week after a person has been exposed before any herpes symptoms appear. First, there will be redness and tingling, followed by small painful bumps that progress to fluid-filled "blisters." Eventually, these burst to form shallow skin ulcers which then crust over, with gradual healing over a couple weeks. An initial genital herpes infection can be very painful, also cause fever, body aches and fatigue. Recurrent outbreaks tend to cause less severe symptoms. Rarely a genital herpes infection can cause inflammation of the membrane that covers the brain (meningitis).
You can only get genital herpes if your partner has an active infection with sores, right? Wrong
A person can be exposed to the virus and pass it to someone else without ever having symptoms. It happens more often than you’d think. That’s because the virus can exist in genital fluids even without any ulcers. This is called "asymptomatic shedding of virus." Although there is a lot more active virus when there are sores, asymptomatic shedding is probably how most people get herpes. What’s more, only one out of four people who tests positive for genital herpes actually knows that they have the virus. That’s a lot of people. Combine the two and you have many people unknowingly infecting others.
Many people who learn they have genital herpes are shocked. They often didn’t see any sores on their partner (and they really looked!) or that their partner had never had any ulcers, ever. This is common and true, because people can have genital herpes and not know it.
Got Ulcers? Get Tested
A person with genital ulcers should see his or her doctor. It’s important to confirm whether or not it is herpes. Genital herpes outbreaks are treated with antiviral medications. These medications can help to reduce the number of days of discomfort and have few side effects. They are most effective when taken early in an outbreak. Some people take these drugs daily to prevent outbreaks.
Once someone has had a test that confirms either type of genital herpes, future partners can have a blood test which tells them if they already have been exposed to the same strain of virus. If the person tests negative, the partner with the infection would be advised to take antiviral therapy daily, in order to help prevent infecting his or her partner. Although daily antiviral therapy decreases the chances of spreading the virus, there is no guarantee, so it’s best to have a frank conversation with a new sexual partner.
No ulcers doesn’t equal no herpes, so then what?
If you’ve never had genital ulcers and as far as you know, have never been exposed, is it worth getting tested? That’s a controversial point and in fact, the widely followed official guidelines discourage screening.
Why? Many reasons: Let’s say a person has a blood test that comes back positive for HSV-2. This means that the patient may have been exposed to HSV-2 at some point in their lives, somehow, somewhere. Research tells us that these folks may be periodically shedding virus particles in their genital fluids. These patients would then be diagnosed with genital herpes, encouraged to share their status with future partners, and offered daily antiviral medication to prevent possibly spreading the virus.
All of this can be a tough pill to swallow, so to speak. There is significant social stigma and shame associated with herpes. In addition, there are occasionally false-positive tests. Labeling someone with the diagnosis can be devastating to their future relationships, and asking someone to take a pill for a condition they may or may not have and may or may not spread seems unreasonable.
However, not all experts agree with the official guidelines. Except for the uncommon case of a false positive blood test for HSV-2, a seropositive test means one of three things:
- The person has had herpes with symptoms.
- The person has had herpes with symptoms but didn’t realize the cause.
- The person has the herpes virus and may shed virus from time to time in genital fluids. The only way to know if a person is shedding the virus is with daily tests. That’s just not practical.
A lot of people fall into the second and third categories — again, that’s why so many people still get the virus. People who should strongly consider getting a blood test include:
- people with any other sexually transmitted infection including chlamydia, human papilloma virus (HPV), etc.
- people in a relationship with a herpes-positive partner, especially if you are a pregnant woman or plan to become pregnant
- any person who asks to be tested.
If you are not sure about getting tested, talk with your doctor.
Adapted from a Harvard Health Blog post by Monique Tello, MD, MPH
About the Author
Harvard Health Publishing Staff, Harvard Health
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Comments
Hi friends!
I am Lisboa Jorge by name and i want to use this great opportunity to share with you some great and amazing testimony of how i was cured from HERPES Virus with the help of Dr Molemen Herbal Medicine.
Over 2 years now i have been suffering and living in pain with this deadly virus Herpes, fear grew in my mind everyday as i heard there is no cure for it, but to me i knew that medical drugs was not the only option in treating viruses and infection, my greatest problem was that i was stocked in pain as the symptoms has circulated over my body.
Few Months ago i decided to get more information online concerning herpes,and while i was surfing the web, i came across some great testimonials from various people on how Dr Molemen has been using his herbal medicine to cure different disease, at first i was shocked as i have never heard of such thing before, and also i doubted if it was true as it never came up on media, these people gave out the email address of Dr Molemen and advised we contact him for any problem, though i was doubting him i decided to put a test on it, moreover it was the fist time for me to hear something like that, i copied the email address of Dr Molemen and i sent him a message about my health status and i also requested for his medicine in order for me to get good health, he gave me a responded after some hours and he told me the procedure involved in order for me to get his medicine, he also said to me he was going to send me some herbal liquid medicine which was going to take for 2 weeks and after 2 weeks i will be totally cured.
I went with Dr Molemen and i followed exactly as i was told by this man, after 3 to 5 days of communication i eventually received a package from the mailing service and that was the medicine sent by Dr Molemen.
I started taking the medicine as i was directed by Dr Molemen and after 2 weeks i also started seen some changes on my skin, and after a month passed i noticed that the rashes on my skin are cleared, i was surprised and i had a thought to myself again LIKE! IS THIS REALLY WORKING OUT? when i noticed this changes i contacted this Great Dr and i told him about it, he told me to go to the hospital and do some check up if the virus is still there, i actually went to the hospital on Friday to do some test on my blood and after 3 days the result came out that i was completely free from HERPES, still many people will not believe this, but it did really works.
Dr Molemen is a brave man and he is set to answer all human disease, today i am living in good health as just with a test i conquered my pain and sorrow, Please you can contact Dr Molemen for any problem with the email below:
I can’t believe your Herpes free! I’m happy for you ,can please email me the Dr’s email and number . Thanks
Dr. Monique Tello!
Please look into Dr. William Halford’s work. Liveherpesvaccine.com Rationalvaccines.com.
Read what he has acchieved and his geniuine understanding of the deeply needed help for us really suffering from herpes.
The medical community must listen now!
A preliminary survey of the scientific literature through PubMed indicates that potential cures for herpesviruses are still at the lab stage, meaning, not yet tested in humans. Interestingly, just this month the Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases published an article titled “Attitudes and Willingness to Assume Risk of Experimental Therapy to Eradicate Genital Herpes Simplex Virus Infection”, which is a study asking if people infected with herpes would be willing to participate in clinical trials testing potentially curative medications. The authors conclude that yes, they would. (Sex Transm Dis. 2016 Sep;43(9):566-71)
Since HSV-1 and HSV-2 are highly communicable, problematic and prevalent, I wonder why there is not more emphasis on finding a cure or solution for these viruses which affect millions more people than other STDs, including AIDS. Rarely do I read an article in any reputable health publication (including Harvard) which addresses the subject of effective, long-term solutions or cures. While I appreciate that this article mentions an antiviral suppressive dose (prophylactic) regimen, would you please update the article to include information about current studies and efforts to eradicate HSV-1 and HSV-2? Thank you.
Commenting has been closed for this post.
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