Neg blood test, neg culture, still signs...

[Freaked]

Hi,

Well, this has been one of the worst weeks of my adult life. I am so confused and scared right now, and nothing the doctors are telling me seems to make any sense. I felt like I might be having a bad yeast infection or bacterial infection, so I went to the Dr. to get checked out. She said it looked "suspicious" for herpes and took a swab test. Understandably I was distraught and asked if there were any other tests we could do, so she suggested a blood test. After an agonizing 3 days, both results came back negative, both for HSV1 AND 2. I was so relieved! But my Dr. actually a nurse practitioner, wanted me to see a more experienced Dr. to look at me and try to diagnose me. This Dr. took one look at me and said I had "classic signs" of an outbreak. Then she suggested another kind of blood test that would look for herpes I might have contracted over the last 8 weeks. The thing is, I have NOT been sexually active for over a year! She claims I could have gotten it from towels, toilet seats etc. It came to light that I did share a hotel room with a friend of mine about 4 weeks ago who is HSV2 positive, but from what I remember we were very careful about not sharing towels, certainly not underwearetc. Also, she was not undergoing an outbreak at the time. I'm waiting for the results of this other kind of blood test to come back and I'm terrified. If anyone can give me some insight, I would really appreciate it.

[Christy C]

What kind of symptoms do you have. I'm certainly not an expert on the technical side of herpes. But I'm sure someone here can advise you. On false negatives and things like that.

Christy

[Freaked]

Well, I did not think I saw any blisters, but the first night I noticed the pain I did notice a kind of watery discharge...if I did they were so small they might have been mistaken for glands. But there was definitely a lesion at one point and the right area of my labia was and still is very inflamed. I did not experience the flulike symptoms associated with a first outbreak. As I said, I have not had sex in a year, and it has been around 7 years since I was dumb enough to have had unprotected sex. But, as I said, the Drs seemed so convinced it was herpies that they ordered a third test. They did notice some elevated bacteria, so they put me on Keflex to see if that would clear it up. In the meantime though, I'm twisting in the wind.

[thiscantbe]

if you've contracted it from sharing a hotel room with someone, you need to be written up about in a journal cause evidently there are no documented cases of people catching it from toilet seats (check out the CDC website - or better yet, tell your doc to read about herpes cause evidently she doesn't agree with the CDC). I think that is the biggest bunch of crock. If it were that easy to catch everyone would have it.

if for some reason you do have it, clearly you had to catch it when you were sexually active, which means a long long time ago. The blood tests commonly done have a 92% sensitivity rate, meaning 8% of the time, the antibodies in someone's blood may be at too low of a level for detection, but they are there. Best you could do is get another blood test done... and just see... cause your level of antibodies might be detectable at another time... or wait for another outbreak and get the sores cultured. There is also a very sensitive and accurate blood test that can be done but evidently only one lab does it (and who knows how much it costs):

From the herpes handbook available from Westover Heights Clinic

The Western Blot, was developed at the University of Washington by Dr. Rhoda Ashley Morrow, and in the U.S., is still done only at that facility. It is very accurate. Samples can be sent to the University of Washington laboratory from any place in the United States. For more information, you can call #206-598-6066.

In your case, maybe your docs were just wrong, since they are really uninformed, but now that they've raised suspicion, I'd really want to know... trying out another blood test or two might be the easiest way to go.

Maybe the pain and inflammation was just from your elevated bacteria... I am surprised what with the negative test results that they haven't been checking out possible bacterial or other problems more...

[panicstricken1]

Diagnosed today!

Hey I just got diagnosed today.. although only a clinical diagnosis (ie based on observation and symptoms only) I was also told that I definately had herpes. I was pretty upset to say the least. My dr took a swab but say's that for a number of reasons I could just as likely come back negative as positive. I had it explained to me that so many people have it with no symptoms at all that it's not really something to worry about too much. obviously I wouldn't like to think that anyone would delibarately go round having unsafe sex when they knew they had it. But as with most viruses the dr can usually only diagnose things by symptoms anyway... If you have the flu or example the dr will ask questions and decide you have the flu. If it doesn't go away they'll do other tests. I'm just figuring that if the antiviral pills get rid of this first outbreak then it is herpes if not it's obviously something else and I'll go back. I'll just assume I have it whetherthe test is positive or negative. Just wish it wasn't so painfull or embarassing. It's not like people are embaressed if they get chickenpox (also a herpes virus that stays in your body for life, and can uncommonly flare up again as shingles)

[Anon]

Panic, did you ever get a postive antibody test fro hsv1 or hsv2? It is very strange that you do not have any antibodies to either. I think after a few months, you really should have some antibodies. Maybe you should use a better test or lab?

Also, the CDC is a total inept organization. I routinely laugh at their ridicilous guidelines and articles for various diseases. They tell a of lies about Lyme disease that go totally against a ton of medical journal articles. They also did that syphils experiment on balck men. Of course they changed their name so people wouldnt associate it with them. There are other things too. They are ALMOST as bad as the FDA.