Hi, Rikkeo

First, I'm glad to hear that you aren't too emotionally distressed and that you've got some good questions.

First, about "cures" natural or pharmaceutical... There aren't any. The virus is some DNA that takes up residence inside the nucleus of the infected nerve cells. It doesn't come out, but replicates when triggered and sends out copies of itself. While we can't rip it out of there, we can do some things to keep it from being too active. See http://nocureforherpes.com


Your immune system plays an important role in that so if you do things like minimizing stress, getting enough rest, eating well and exercising, you'll definitely have a better experience with keeping herpes under control and should feel better in general anyway. The antiviral drugs we have available are very safe and effective at inhibiting viral replication if needed. Some people use them episodically, meaning starting to take them when they feel an outbreak trying to start and some people take them suppressively, that is all the time if they have frequent outbreaks or are trying to minimize potential shedding to protect a partner.

About the having children thing.. There's no reason not to have children. Thousands of women with genital herpes have babies all the time without it being a problem. Lots of them don't even know they have it. Remember that about 1/4 of adult women have genital herpes so if it was a problem, we'd know about it.

Now, I've got some questions..

About your girl friend.. Are you sure she doesn't have it? If you're assuming that she doesn't have it because she doesn't notice any symptoms, then that's not at all a good assumption. The majority of infected people don't know that they are because they don't have any symptoms that they recognize as herpes. She should probably get a good blood test like the HerpeSelect IgG for both types 1&2 so she knows her actual status.

Where do you think you might have gotten this if not from her?

How were you diagnosed? What test was used? If it's a visual diagnosis, they're wrong more often than not. If it was a non-type-specific test and the assumption was made that it's type 2 because of the location, that may well be wrong, as about 1/3 of newly diagnosed genital herpes cases are actually type 1 acquired through receiving oral sex.

Well, that's enough for now.. Let me know how I can help further.