I'm interested in getting feedback from people who have some medical expertise on herpes infection and autoimmunity.
Long story short, I had a sex with a partner who, exactly one week later, developed herpes lesions on her labia. While we both waited for STD test results to come back, I read everything I could on herpes. From what I gathered, most experts believe it is impossible to contract genital hsv 1 with a prior oral hsv 1, due to the antibodies already present from the oral infection. I was extremely worried, as I knew that we both had oral hsv 1 through antibody tests and, with her, recurrent cold sores over the last several years. I started to suspect that this was a hsv 2 infection that I had contracted unknowingly (from a previous partner who didn't apparently know or neglected to inform me) and passed on to this partner.
But yesterday, her lesion swab results came back positive for type 1 only, and her doctor didn't seem the least surprised given the minor severity of the outbreak. My blood tests came back negative for hsv 2, which means that I didn't have a prior hsv 2 infection. I'm relieved, and I've never had any herpes symptoms on my genitals or mouth. However, my current partner has had recurrent cold sores, especially within the last few months when she has gone off and on birth control. I'm wondering if perhaps this was a self-infection passed from her mouth to my genitals and then hers since I did not perform oral sex on her.
My question is this: isn't this an incredibly rare situation? Shouldn't she have been immune to genital hsv 1? Could this be a sign that she has some sort of autoimmunity disease?
Thanks for any help you can provide.