Quasi vaccine theory

[Achesve]

For couples where one person has hsv and the other does not, I have a theory and I'd like to hear your input. If it is to be a long term relationship, where over time it is more than likely the other will contract it from the partner eventually. How about this for a solution. Transmit it intentionally, but, to a harmless place on the person's body, like the top of their foot, or the ankle. This way their body builds up the antibodys, but any outbreaks will be harmless and away from anything mucosal and dangerous, and cosmetically more sound. You can even administer valtrex immediately upon initial symptoms, so latent pools are maintained to a minimum. 

This way when you do have intercourse, your partner is essentially already "vaccinated". In theory, this sounds like the better alternative of having the initial exposure be to the genitals or mouth. (This is of course under the premise that no vaccine is available to market for years). Thoughts?

[Sillybrain2]

Well there is a theory (can't remember where I read that or from which 'expert' it came from) that the longer you are with someone who has HSV, you are exposed over time to small amounts of the virus which can increase your resistance to contracting the virus completely, or something like that. unless you are exposed to a full blown outbreak then your body might not be able to fight the invasion. I don't believe the resistance build up, 14 years with my partner who has ohsv1, I have also had an oral infection since I was a kid, both of these factors didn't stop me from recently contracting ghsv1.

I have come to realise there is nothing typical about this virus and the only thing constent about it is its inconsistency symptoms wise with each person it infects.

i like your theory though.

[tom343]

The virus can infect multiple points. In some people the virus has actually travelled up the nerves into completely different body parts. 

e.g. this recent story. 

http://m.blogher.com/i-have-herpes-its-not-where-youd-think

Herpes is a piece of sh%t virus. It's all I know. It behaves differently for everyone. It can get around barriers and it can cause alot of havoc. We need a vaccine asap because this has infected so many ppl. Is there a virus which has infected more ppl? 

Edited December 8, 2015 by tom343

[StayingUpbeat]

The flu infects (and kills) far more people.  TB and malaria (though not viruses) kill 1.1 and 0.5 million (mostly children) respectively every year.  Heck strep throat (which causes permanent heart damage if not treated) kills hundreds of thousands of children every year.

Achesve, your concept is almost exactly the concept for Dr. Halford's vaccine except he has removed a gene that allows HSV to evade the immune system.  So, all things considered I would wait for that (or HSV-529).  The vaccine still causes a latent HSV infection (on your arm) but much like chicken pox the immune system is readily able to keep it in check.

The first small pox vaccine was more or less what you mention.  Doctors in the 17 and 1800's in towns where small pox was endemic would dry the scabs of people who had died of small pox and rub a small amount into a scratch they made on a healthy person's arm.  Now, 1-2% of people would die of small pox from this procedure but it likely saved the constitutional army when George Washington had it done to all of his troops.

I do recall reading a paper that when someone is infected by a person on daily suppressive antivirals their resulting outbreaks tend to be much less severe.  Since only HSV mutants lacking the HSV-tk gene can survive in the presence of acyclovir the theory was that HSV-tk negative viruses tend to not to be as readily able to reactivate from latency.

Edited December 9, 2015 by StayingUpbeat

[tom343]

9 hours ago, StayingUpbeat said:

The flu infects (and kills) far more people.  TB and malaria (though not viruses) kill 1.1 and 0.5 million (mostly children) respectively every year.  Heck strep throat (which causes permanent heart damage if not treated) kills hundreds of thousands of children every year.

[tom343]

I think herpes still beats all those viruses in total infections. The flu comes in and out, malaria and tb may have more deaths but not as many total infections as herpes.  

[StayingUpbeat]

Are you talking total number of people infected at one time or total infections?  The flu 10x wins the later.  As far as the other diseases go you're right the total number of people living with those is lower but it is mostly because it simply kills those people.

The point is that, as maladies go, HSV is by a wide margin only a concern to the cross-section of humanity that is wealthy and lucky enough to pretend it is more of a problem than real diseases that kill people and devastate families.

Put another way: tell someone who watched their child die of malaria that HSV is a 'big deal'.
Despite Progress, 1,500 Children Die Every Day from Malaria

I am all in when it comes to research toward eradicating HSV but it is not, and should never be, compared from a morbidity standpoint to the diseases that truly deserve the attention of human medical endeavor.  It is a real problem on sites like this that needs to be kept in context.

Edited December 10, 2015 by StayingUpbeat

[Achesve]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies. I'm not sure if I got a direct response backed by any scientific data yet though, just circumstantial evidence. So let's say you intentionally infect someone's ankle with hsv. They now have the antibodies, and the hsv is isolated to those particular nerve clusters. However, the antibodies, is throughout their whole body. Are there any studies, or applied facts that would back the theory that they would now have a resistance, or even an immunity to acquiring it in their genital or oral regions?

All these attenuated vaccine trials show, that once vaccinated, the immune response does not allow for new virus settle. This should technically be the same, with the only conceit being that they would have breakouts on their ankle now and then. 

Edited December 10, 2015 by Achesve

[vzhe]

If you were HSV-2 negative, and accidentally got infected with the HSV-2 virus on your ankle, then a few weeks after the initial infection, you'd likely have systemic HSV-2 antibodies in all of your body. This would likely mean that your acquisition probability of genital HSV-2, and more so of symptomatic genital HSV-2, probably would have gone down dramatically.

Doing such an infection intentionally is risky and clearly ethically questionable. A prophylactic attenuated vaccine would work pretty much exactly this way, but would be significantly safer and unlikely to ever reactivate. I'd discourage strongly against the notion of intentionally infecting anyone with a wild type virus.

If however someone you know ever was at risk of getting accidentally infected in an unusual location, it might be a good idea to give them valacyclovir 2x daily a day before and for ~10 days after, because this could possibly reduce the amount of nerve cells infected and also to select for a type of HSV that might be less likely to reactivate (but also likely would be treatment resistant to acyclovir). Also you should practice good hygiene to make sure that the person does not unintentionally acquire any bacterial or other infection.

If you ever heard about any such case where this occurred, I think you'd do a lot of good if you documented it and published about it. 

Edited December 13, 2015 by vzhe

[Achesve]

Hi vzhe, thanks for the reply. My premise is pertaining to couples in the situation now, that can not wait 5-10 years for a viable candidate to hit the market. Where the likelihood is high that over time, they will wind up getting it. So to preemptively intentionally infect, should theoretically, be a safer/wiser ethical choice than simply waiting for the essentially inevitable transfer via genital/oral. 

If it stays local to the nerves of the site, then as long as it is minded, and cautiously tended to, I would propose that having an ob on your ankle has far less adverse health and cosmetic effects than oral/genital. 

Understood that the attenuated vaccine is preferable. A cure even moreso. But neither of those exist in an attainable form yet. 

If I had an ob on my ankle, there would be zero psychological distress. Chances of infecting others would plummet to practically Zero. Same with all the other detrimental potentials of hsv in the gential/oral regions. 

 

 

 

[JBnATL]

On 12/8/2015, 6:34:08, Achesve said:

where over time it is more than likely the other will contract it from the partner eventually. How about this for a solution. Transmit it intentionally, but, to a harmless place on the person's body, like the top of their foot, or the ankle. 

Your premise that over time it is more likely that one's partner will get this virus is wrong.  More people get this virus from someone who does not know they have it than from someone who does know.  Personally I have dated with around a dozen women and never pass it along and that includes mostly unprotected sex (their choice).  I have known many married people who's spouse never got it even after decades of being married.

If someone has it on their foot or ankle they have genital herpes.  Those areas are covered by the sacral ganglia nerve system which also covers the genitals.

Using common sense there is no reason to expect that your partner will get this virus.

JB

[Scared12345]

I agree with jb

[throwawayday345]

Heck throw in some Vivagel condoms (kills 99.9% of HSV) with antivirals and I just don't see how it's possible to transmit (unless male outbreaks are taking place outside the genitals, aka the upper thigh)  

[StayingUpbeat]

6 hours ago, JBnATL said:

Your premise that over time it is more likely that one's partner will get this virus is wrong.  More people get this virus from someone who does not know they have it than from someone who does know.  Personally I have dated with around a dozen women and never pass it along and that includes mostly unprotected sex (their choice).  I have known many married people who's spouse never got it even after decades of being married.

If someone has it on their foot or ankle they have genital herpes.  Those areas are covered by the sacral ganglia nerve system which also covers the genitals.

Using common sense there is no reason to expect that your partner will get this virus.

JB

JB,
  You've misunderstood the probability in this case from a mathematical perspective.  For the research studies performed by Anna Wald that you are referring to:

1. The probability of infection is about 10% per year (if both partners know)
2. Adding antivirals reduces that by half to about 5% per year
3. Using condoms reduces that to about 2.5% per year

But here's the rub.  That's for sex 2/week/year.  To @Achesve's point the cumulative probability over 10 years is actually quite high. 

1. Becomes 100%
2. Becomes a 50/50 chance
3. Becomes about 25%

While I wholeheartedly agree with @vzhe, intentionally infecting someone is very questionable, JB's assertion that you are just as likely to contract HSV-2 by having sex one time with an HSV infected person as you are having sex with that same person continuously for a decade is very, incorrect.

[lexyz22]

3 hours ago, throwawayday345 said:

Heck throw in some Vivagel condoms (kills 99.9% of HSV) with antivirals and I just don't see how it's possible to transmit (unless male outbreaks are taking place outside the genitals, aka the upper thigh)  

Vivagel lubricant should be available within the next year or so (it has eu marketing approval, and the condoms are already available). If you rub this over your boxer shorts area and testicles i'd say it reduces the risk even more.

Antiviral condoms/lube + antiviral meds is probably taken down to a 0.5-1% chance i'd say (without an outbreak occuring of course).

And yes, if everyone here had HSV localized to their toe, ankle or other insignificant area it would cause ZERO psychological distress, it goes to show how connected to our sexuality we really are as human beings in modern society.

[vzhe]

@Achesve sent you a message

[Achesve]

Jb, or others, correct me if I'm wrong here. But the ankle isn't in the "boxer shorts region". I am assuming that means there is some sort of disconnect or disassociation between the nerves acted upon during a standard ob, and those that would appear say on an ankle. 

It it seems pretty conclusive that the con census is that it stays in the boxer shorts area. Otherwise, if it was the exact same network of nerves, people would be getting ob's on their ankles as frequently as any other area in the boxer short region, which I haven't seen many reports of. 

Is it possible to allow for the possibility that an ankle infection wouldn't be considered genital herpes, but rather hsv2...on your ankle.