My Wife just found out she has Genital Herpes

[pppfree]

Hi Grace,

I'm age 31 male. and my wife is 28.  I've been with my wife for over 3 years now. We love each other and never had any issues. A few days ago she got a small cluster of bumps between her thigh right next to here vagina. After going to the doctor, she was immediately told she has herpes. We never cheated on each other because we are almost always together 24/7. So we didn't even try to blame each other. Neither of us have ever had an outbreak, and have tested for HIV in the pass that came back Negative. We always talked about getting other tests done but because we never had any symptoms we didn't stress it. We have been having unprotected sex for the pass 3 years with no signs of anything. Now we are both worried that this will tear us a part. We have been talking about having kids in the next year or two and we are not sure how this will affect us or our baby. I also feel guilty because I know I could have had it and gave it to her even though I never had a breakout. The Doctor only told her she didn't need any medication and it would heal within a few days. So far it has started to disappear. But we are both scared. I'm not sure if I will now have a breakout. I've already made an appointment to also go and get tested next week. I know there a good chance I more likely have it also. But what I'm mainly concerned about is, do we continue having unprotected sex when she doesnt have a breakout? I hate to act as if I'm scorning her by having to start using a condom every time. Can you please offer us some advice. as to how we can move on from here, we love each other and neither of us are ignorant. But we just need someone to talk to right now who understands.

Thanks Grace

[Bigtimeworried55]

**"Including non-HSV babies."

[Bigtimeworried55]

Odds are you both have the virus. The question remains, which type? Have you ever had a cold sore before? Many people have HSV1, which typically is contracted at childhood.

If you have oral sex, odds are she has HSV1 which is on the rise for genital infections. The goal here is to have the bumps swabbed and have a blood test to see who is positive for what and what types. From there you can game plan.

If you both have the virus, protection is useless as it would be insignificant because you both have antibodies for the virus. If she has HSV1 genitally and you orally, it would be extremely unlikely you contract the virus in a second location (ie. genitals). This is due to the body already having antibodies. This includes when she is having a breakout. It's that difficult to transmit when the host already has the infection in another location.

Please get blood tested via IGG and go from there. This doesn't have to be a relationship breaker, many people have HSV and live perfectly fine lives with healthy sex lives...including having healthy non-HSV lives

[Fleetwood20]

Wow that's terrible diagnosing by the doctor, most incomplete! Did he not even take a swab??

The place seems wrong and you can't just visually diagnose with huge confidence. It could be shingles (and the doctor probably implicitly included this possibility in his herpes diagnosis), fungus or bacterial infection.

If it is herpes, then an example of how it happens is that you have an oral HSV1 infection and passed this to your wife's genitals through oral sex. This is very common.

If this is important to track down, then you should both seek IgG antibody testing type specific for HSV1 and HSV2.

Regardless of what you decide to do, both if you reach the place that you are dealing with one of the world's most common and in most cases insignificant viruses that pales against a loving relationship.