Question:
I am 47 years old. Was having some female probs so my dr. ran a bunch of tests. One was for herpes....Although none of my female probs were related to herpes, my test came back positive for 1 & 2. The levels were VERY low and I have NEVER, EVER had a symptom in my life. I was with my husband for 17 years and he is not positive. I had 1 (2) year relationship also since my divorce and found out AFTER that relationship ended, that I had herpes. Neither of those men are positive. A starting seeing a new dr and she said all I had are "antibodies" and not to worry about it. I could not pass it on since I have NEVER had symptoms/outbreaks....Am I wrong in thinking this way.....When you get a flu shot, they inject you with the antibodies but that doesn't mean you have the flu, right? So is it the same with the herpes? I have the antibodies but not the disease???? Can anyone shed any lite on this for me. I really don't understand.......Thank you

Answer:
If you have antibodies in your system, you do have the virus. You're lucky though, and it seems it's remained dormant in your body and hasn't produced outbreaks (although, but sure to think of that one really hard - sometimes outbreaks are mistaken for yeast infections, ingrown hairs, pimples, etc). However, she was wrong that you can't pass it on -- you certainly have LESS chance of passing it, but there's something called asymptomatic shedding that we believe occurs about 4% of the time, which gives you about a 4% chance of passing it on to another partner. Low, but not zero.

Have your exes been tested for herpes, specifically? Or are you assuming they don't have it because they haven't had any outbreaks? It's also possible this could have been in your system for YEARS and you didn't know it -- if you had your primary OB as a young child, for instance. Most of the time when doctors do STD panels, they don't include HSV because it's so common (75-90% have oral, 25% have genital).

Answer:
I went back to my 2 ex's and asked them to be tested specifically for herpes and they both came back negative. As for signs/symptoms....no...I have never had any....Thank God!!!

Answer:
Hm. Then there's really no telling how you got it or how long you've had it, but they're lucky it didn't get passed on. Is there any chance you've had sexual relations of any kind with someone else since then?

Keep your fingers crossed you never get an OB! :)

Answer:
Nope, no realtions since then. That was it.......Thanks for you replies

Answer:
confuzedone;
I would get copies of your test results to make sure you got the correct test.

The correct test is an IgG type specific bloodtest. You'll have two results, one for HSV1, the other for HSV2.

Regards
Mr Smith