Hi, so I really appreciate anyone who has insight about this - especially gyno's! Background: at 17, I was diagnosed with genital herpes type 1 (so the cold sore type on genitals) from my boyfriend at the time. He had asymptomatic shedding from his mouth. I had one other very minor outbreak besides the initial one when I was 21 and it was very mild, little to no pain, only one sore. Fast forward to now, I'm 23, I recently had a genital outbreak on my left labia (sort of inner) and it was fairly painful, several sores, swollen glands and all, although the outbreak didn't last long - maybe 6 days. I got a viral culture of it on the 2nd day of the outbreak AND ALSO on the 4th day of the outbreak, to be extra careful. Turns out, one culture came back positive as HSV 1, the 4th day culture came back positive for HSV 2. This was exactly what I was terrified of and am freaking out. I use condoms every single time I have sex and have only slept with 2 different guys in the past 3 months and maybe 8 men total in my whole life (several of which have been completely monogamous relationships). Literally use condoms every time without fail. Please note - the same day I got the first culture (2nd day), I also got tested for HSV 2-specific IGG which was negative on Feb 12th, and HSV IGM which was also negative.
Is it possible to have a herpes outbreak of both HSV 1 and HSV 2 at the same time?? I can't find anything on the internet about it. Wouldn't my previous HSV 1 provide a bit of immunity against genital HSV 2? How high are the rates for false positives for herpes cultures? I believe it was a NAA culture - whatever that means.
So confused, don't understand how this is happening especially to someone like me who is super careful and gets STD tested all the time. Is it possible it is just HSV 1 and the second culture was not accurate? Which culture should I trust more? What are my next steps? Please help - doctors seem to know a shockingly little amount about HSV.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!