Question:
Can you tell if the herpes you're diagnosed with something you got recently or a long time ago? Can the antibodies that show up in your results tell you how recent it is? I had a boyfriend almost two years ago who suffered of cold sores can he have been the one to have given me the the type 2 and is it possible that I only had symptoms now almost two years ago???

Answer:
The only way to know how old an infection is is to get blood tested right away and have it come out negative. It takes from 4-16 weeks to develop enough antibodies to show up in a blood test, so if you can catch it in those first 4 or so weeks, you might be able to tell if it's a new infection. If you've waited over 4 weeks and test positive, there's no way to tell.