Question:
I justfound out yesterday that I have herpes. I think Im still in shock that I have an STD. I have stayed in my room for 2 days and locked the door. I feel dirty and trashy and I feel that I will never find a good guy to date now. I am a gay man, and I use condoms all the time for other obvious reasons, so why this why now? Im sexually active but NOT to an extreme. I have a roommate who has massive orgies and im a prude and get this. I feel alone and I cant talk to anyone, I decided to get out of bed and look for a chat or support group. Im glad I found this site, PLEASE SOMEONE TALK TO ME..make me feel better. I did get some meds, but when will the sores go away? I only have 2 and they arent that big, but I still feel so unattractive and dirty.....I need a shoulder in the big T (texas) :cry: [/b]

Answer:
Hi,
I'm waiting for tomorrow to get to a clinic and confirm what I pretty much already know. Like you, I'm a careful girl who always uses condoms and has had regular sexual health checks. I chilled out a little recently adn haven't had a health check for a few years but was still always careful with condoms. I defend my right to sleep with whomever I like so long as I use protection but I am not particularly promiscuous. Anyway, to cut a long story short I slep with a new partner last weekend and as always used a condom. When I began getting symptoms I stayed in denial for a little while as I didn't even know you could catch herpes whilst using a condom. I'm pretty devastated. It seems very unfair. And every time I read something positive (I have to say, the UK sites are a lot more positive as we are NOT allowed to sell meds without a prescription over here so people have less to gain by using scare tactics) I feel better, but when I go to bed or think about the fact that I now have this for life, I get very upset. There have been a lot of crying jags!
I am waiting to find out for sure tomorrow but if this is not herpes I'll be amazed. I'm in SO much pain, I can't even move the skin down there to see how many blisters I have as it's so sensitive. Peeing is a nightmare. I'm putting it off every time!
You know what though, apparently 1 in 4 people in the UK is carrying it so unless you're a f*cking saint, your days are numbered! I'm going to make it a personal mission to tell everyone I knwo that you can get this even whilst practising safe sex.
How you doing today anyway?
x

Answer:
Hey =) Sorry for what you are going through but it does get easier; you will have your good days and you will have your bad days. Soon the good begin to outnumber the bad. I was diagnosed just a little over a month ago. I was devastated. I am not promiscuous and and have only been with two people and each person I have slept with I have been in a long term relationship with. We were careful in the beginning then I got to this point where I trusted him and we had been tested, the only thing is they do not generally test for herpes unless you have symptoms, all that was tested for was gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphillis and we were both clean. Little did I know! Not long after we started having unprotected sex I got one little irritated spot in a not so wonderful place. I went to the doctor and she said it could be herpes but didn't look like your typical herpes. Well the culture came back negative but I was told there was a slight chance it could be a false negative. Me and guy number two broke up in March and I had not thought much more about the possibility of having herpes till then because I had had no other problems and that had been a little over a year ago and after all the results had come back negative (so what if there was a slight possibility of having a false negative; I just knew no matter what the negative result was right). I decided to have the blood test done so I could have a definitive answer, and found out I was positive. I had recently began dating someone about a month before I found out. I had to decide wether to tell him or not. I though I owed it to him to let him know (we had not had sex but had fooled around). Telling him actually helped me though it was one of the toughest things I have had to do. He has been very supportive, as have the select friends I have decided to talk to about this. They haven't judged me and don't treat me any differently than they used to. I think you definitely need someone you can talk to. Believe me I spent the first few days crying my eyes out and not wanting to step foot out my door. I felt so STUPID. How could this happen to me; I just graduated nursing school I should have known better! As I said before it will get better and you will have more good days than bad. Keep your head up and if you go to the inspiration section of this forum there are some posts that helped lift my spirits.

Answer:
I'm a careful girl who always uses condoms and has had regular sexual health checks. Condoms don't protect you from herpes. I know several people that contracted genital herpes during what they thought was "safe sex". The only safe sex is the kind you do alone in the shower.

I defend my right to sleep with whomever I like so long as I use protection Everyone has that right, but also remember that there are people in this world that have that same mind set but refuse to practice "safer sex" of any kind. What's worse, is there are people out there that have this and worse but still refuse to stop sleeping around and also refuse to use protection because they just don't care. When you put yourself out there, you don't really know which of those people you are messing with and that's scary.
Grad, I can't tell you the number of people that I have heard of, that has herpes, that refuse to tell potential sexual partners because "they assume the risk when they are sleeping with me". It is great that you decided to the person you started dating. People that refuse to inform partners are just compounding the problem.

I have a roommate who has massive orgies and im a prude and get this. Your friend will get burned one day, he may have already but just doesn't know it yet. It's really just a matter of time. It really is just impossible, these days, to act like that and NOT contract something.

But yes, it does get better. I've had herpes for 5 years now. I have very few, very very mild outbreaks. My last outbreak came 2 and a half years after the one before it. I think 2 and a half years with no outbreaks is excellent! I am not on suppressive therapy, I dont take any meds. For me, it has turned into a very minor inconvience. My monthlies are more of a pain in the ass then my herpes..LOL

Answer:
Hey, just wanted to thank everyone who has posted helpful stuff here. Today I got my initial results and I do have herpes, I'm waiting to find out which kind. Oddly, it's kind of a relief, and not only because I now have my antivirals and can look forward to a little physical relief (and NOT peeing in the shower!) but because I have always found it easier to deal with definites. Anyway, the more I look into this and speak to health professionals, the more positive it all begins to look. It would seem that good diet and general lifestyle is a good start, and although easier said than done, keeping positive.
Can I just ask any of you if you have been prescribed antivirals for your first outbreak? Is that a universal treatment or UK specific one? Does anyone know if continued use of them (i,e, every time you get an outbreak) is a little counterproductive, as the immune system is not fighting and therefore strengthening resources against it? I ask as I've been offered further antivirals as preventive medicine but I would rather have a few bad outbreaks and build an immunity than a lot of milder ones....just a thought if anyone has any ideas?
Anyway, on a positive note I emailed the person I thought it was most likely I contracted it from, fully expecting he would never want to speak to me again, and we are now having a frank and blame free conversation. It's a little easier as we both are/were responsible as far as using condoms, so neither of us feels as though the other was putting them unecessarily at risk, but it has made all the difference that I can talk with him as the stigma was the thing I was most afraid of. Turns out he got symptoms exactly the same timescale as me and this was his first outbreak too. Weird. He thinks it may have been someone he slept with recently whereas he was my first for a while. Anyway, I'm going on now. I just wanted to say, and particularly to AustinTex, that although I had a few VERY dark and sleepless nights over this, and beat up on myself and was despondent, I am now feeling so much more positive and totally believe I can live with this. And Delilah, I think I will make the choice to inform any future sexual partners. I've been thinking about the effect this might have on my sex life and decided that being that open can only be a good thing, and if the person I'm considering sleeping wiht isn't the kind of person I feel comfortable telling, then probably I shouldn't be doing something as intimate as having sex with them anyway. In fact, it might help me make slightly better choices in men!! Ha ha. Clouds and silver linings......
Thanks for the help on this site, certainly for me the biggest thing about it has been being able to talk and getting advice from people who are clearly living perfectly well with H.
Thanks!

Answer:
Right on ya..

Answer:
Don't let herpes ruin your life. It's not the end of the world. Stats say that 25% of the sexually active people in the United states have HSV-1 or HSV-2. You're not alone!

Answer:
Is anyone out there from Charleston, SC, Charlotte, NC, Dallas or Ft Worth, Denver, Des Moines . . . Carlisle, Columbia, Gettysburg, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Red Lion, York or elsewhere in Pennsylvania . . . Kansas City, St Louis or elsewhere in Missouri . . . Lawrence, Manhattan, Topeka, Wichita or anywhere else in Kansas . . . Lexington, Louisville or elsewhere in Kentucky . . . Grand Island, Lincoln or elsewhere in Nebraska . . . New York, Tulsa or anywhere else in Oklahoma?

We now have small Yahoo Groups for singles with h in the locations mentioned above. We are the do-it-yourself type, just trying to create useful LOCAL resources. I monitor this thread, so, drop me a comment if you want more information.

I'm Uno and pretty easy to find around here.

Have a good week.

Answer:
You can also find support and social groups listed on the Social Support Networking Alliance.

Hope this helps,

Angela :D