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Roommate Has Oral Herpes!?

So I have 2 new roommates and one of them has oral herpes. We share a community of dishes like cups, plates, and silverware, or at least we did. She has sores all over her lips and the are fairly new but she still uses all our cups with no consideration to us. She says, "It's not as bad as people think."WTF! We are afraid to use any of our dishes now because we aren't sure if it will be passed on to us. We don't have a dishwasher to sterilize the dishes and so we aren't sure what to do at this point.
Will we be safe just hand washing the dishes?
Is there an alternative to using a dishwasher but still sterilizing the dishes?
How can we prevent it from spreading to us?
What should we do?
2 Responses
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Avatar universal
Hmm... I'm looking for the right balance between sensitive education and outragious indignation over your comments. I'll give it a try.

You clearly are alarmed and frightened, which I understand. But you also are insensitive and, frankly, ignorant.

There is absolutely no risk of infection because you are the roommate of someone with oral herpes. Herpes, either oral or genital, is not transmitted by shared eating utensils, cups, towels, etc. Further, half of all adults in the US (more or less in other countries) have oral HSV1 infections. (There's a 50% chance you have it yourself, whether or not you have had symptoms of oral herpes.) In other words, half of all the people you have ever been friends with, shared meals with, shaken hands with, etc, etc also are infected. The only difference here is that your roommate has told you about her infection.

Washing dishes:  You don't need a dishwasher. You could disregard dishwashing entirely; you won't be at risk.

How to avoid spreading to you? Don't kiss or have oral sex with your roommate when she is having an outbreak.

What should you do? Apologize to your rooommate for your overreaction; stop worrying; and go about your life as normal.
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2 Comments
Late comment, but what you said is absolutely FALSE. Oral herpes can and does spread via saliva, so it is certainly possible to spread it through sharing eating utensils, cups, towels, and whatever other objects and surfaces that come into contact with the mouth area of someone with oral herpes. The virus can also spread through improperly washed dishes/cups/utensils. Thorough cleaning with soap and water will kill the virus, so make sure any dishes shared with someone with HSV-1 are cleaned and dried before using them.
Actually, herpes doesn't spread via saliva. It's spread by direct skin-to-skin contact with someone who has it, either mouth-to-mouth or genital-to-genital, or mouth-to-genital.

Personally, I wouldn't share eating utensils and the like, but that's because that's how things like the flu, colds and strep are spread. Herpes would be way down at the bottom of my concerns.

People with herpes are not walking biohazards.
Avatar universal
Well said Howard. Well said.
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