Oct 11
25

HSV1 and HSV2. Someone pls help me understand?

3 Comments
hsv1
fairy_tale_dreams asked:


I had a culture done of what my doctor said was an allergic reaction to my medication. It came back positive for HSV1 (new infection) then when the blood work came back it said I was positive for HSV1 and HSV2 both new infections within the past few weeks. How can the culture only test for HSV1 and the blood work test positive for both?? Should I have it rechecked?? I’m confused, I don’t know much about HSV except that type one causes cold sores and type two cause genital out breaks and they are almost completely alike in their genetics. Someone pls help ..

Tags: , ,

This entry was posted on October 25, 2011 at 7:09 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in HSV 1 by admin 3 Comments

3 Responses to "HSV1 and HSV2. Someone pls help me understand?"

  • Angela says:
    October 26, 2011 at 5:58 am
    Reply

    Actually, if the doctor has asked the lab to type the culture then they can check for both HSV-1 and HSV-2.

    A herpes type specific antibody test will tell you also if you have HSV-1, HSV-2, both OR nothing at all.

    HSV-1 & HSV-2 can be both oral and genital. Be sure and check my sources. I put a lot of work into those pages.

  • Rivergirl100 says:
    October 29, 2011 at 5:42 pm
    Reply

    You can get either HSV1 or HSV2 on either your genitals or your mouth – although HSV1 “prefers” the mouth, and HSv2 “prefers” the genitals.

    By “culture” I assume you mean that the doctor swabbed a particular sore. The swab came back positive for HSV1, so that particular sore (which was probably on your mouth, but could have been on your genitals) was caused by HSV1.

    Later, you took a blood test, which tests for antibodies in your blood. We expected it to turn up positive for HSV1, since you have had symptoms (the sore) that we KNOW were caused by HSV1. But, surprise, you also have antibodies for HSV2, which means that at some point you also caught HSV2. Most people with herpes (either oral or genital) don’t have symptoms, so its not exactly a shock that you didn’t know you had it. But I’m sure its a shock for you!

    You could have this HSV2 orally or genitally – we don’t know which because you haven’t shown any symptoms for it. HSV2 is most often caught genitally, but can be caught orally. And you will likely be contagious periodically, even when you don’t have any symptoms.

    This is one of the problems with testing for herpes through a blood test. You know that you have HSV2, but you don’t know WHERE you have it.

    I hope this helps. For more info on both oral and genital herpes, I strongly recommend the website below. It will give you RELIABLE information (unlike some folks here on Y!A) about herpes, the symptoms, how it is spread, etc.

    Good luck.

  • bubblyone says:
    October 30, 2011 at 5:00 am
    Reply

    check out this website…it is very informative. has all the information you need about HIV and STDS.

Leave a Comment