Question:
I know symptoms can very wildly from person to person, so I'm just wondering if someone had a similar first outbreak.

I'm not sure if this part is relevant or not. I had protected sex about a week before this started. I was mildly sick for about a week. Had a dry cough, with a runny nose, and a bit of a sinus headache.

But then two days before the real symptoms started, and about a week after I started feeling sick, I had a one night stand. That was protected as well, but received unprotected oral. I got a small patch of red, slightly itchy skin near the base of my penis, with about 8 bumps that looked identical to pimples. They were distinct bumps, not touching each other at all. After about a day, they popped, but I didn't notice any form of fluid coming out of them. They scabbed over quickly, and are healing as an open sore would. About 4 days after the itchy skin appeared, the lymph nodes in the right side of my groin became slightly swollen and slightly painful to touch. My right testicle is also slightly painful, off an on. Mostly off. I have no other symptoms that I can tell, including no pain in the sores, no further itching, no burning at all, no fever, etc.

Did anyone have a similar first outbreak? Does it even sound like herpes? I know I need to go to the doctor, but from what I've read about the testing, I don't know if there is any point because the outbreak is pretty much healed now.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer:
Further to my last post. The lesion is now completely healed. But it seems to have left a scar. Is this normal for herpes? Even responses saying its not normal would be helpful.

I have gone in for testing and am waiting the results. But I don't think it'll show anything because they weren't able to do a culture, and its probably too early for the blood test to show anything.

Thanks in advance

Answer:
what you have described could very easily be signs of a herpes simplex (hsv) outbreak (ob).

my experience is that no two ob's are identical even for the same person. you may have one huge weeping blister that scabs over and is very painful or you may have one small patch of tiny blisters that go away in a few days that you would barely notice or simply tender skin that itches.

You are correct that a blood test may not show antibodies if this is a recent exposure. Ideally you should get a blood test between 8 to 16 weeks post exposure if you know when that was.

I've never had scarring but I did have areas where the hair fell out for a while - but it grew back.

Answer:
I have had similar symptoms to you. I haven't had the complete testing done yet. I've only had the swabbing done. Still waiting for the results. You can read my posti titled "Is this strange" at the top of page.