Question:
Well i get coldsores, which i know is a form of herpes. If gotten this since i can remember. No big deal anymore to me. I get maybe once a year usually due to my yearly cold i get.

Well last week i noticed about 5 or 6 small pin-prick sized bumps on the shaft of my penis. They are not in a cluster, and look nothing like or act nothing like the sores i get on lips. So far they've yet to change. No swollen blister look or scabby feeling. I can even press on them and try to make them hurt, like the coldsores i get on my lips hurt, but nothing. As for symptoms, nothing out of the normal; no urinating pain, not fever or headaches, ect. I actually haven't been sexually active for seven months now and the last girl i was with got tested (not blood though) and she came up clean. Now i would've thought she would've had to have some type of symptom by now b/c she's not exactly a healthy type.

Well even with all the facts, i'd rather be safe than sorry. The problem is i don't know how to get tested. If i get a blood test, it'll obviosly come back positive for hsv1(most likely). But that doesn't tell me if i have genital herpes though. And if i would have hsv2, i probably would've had some more serious ob so far. I've heard the swab test basically suck and i'd hate to get it back negative and infect someone.

Any ideas?

Answer:
... the last girl i was with got tested (not blood though) and she came up clean. I would question just how she got tested.

It's not that the culture test sucks; negative cultures are common and do not mean you do not have the virus, rather it only means there was no virus particles present at the time of swabbing. The best time to get a swab test is at the VERY beginning of an outbreak, within the first 48 hours, not when things are starting to heal.

For you a blood test is the most practical move. While a blood test can not identify the location of the infection, knowing that you get cold sores, you can assume any HSV1 infection is oral. If you've had cold sores since you were a kid, then the chance of having genital HSV1 is very very very low.

The correct test is an IgG type specific, HerpeSelect is the most common. Skip the older IgM test, those results will only confuse things.

Regards
Mr Smith

Answer:
Alright. Well what if i just had her get blood tested then? Honestly she's the only one that i could've gotten anything from. Everyone else either gets regular check ups, plus i trusted them. And the one before this girl was actually 6-8 weeks pregnant and had gone in for all the exams.

So how much is the blood test usually then? I know i'll have to pay for it if i'm to get her to go in.