Question:
this is so fucked up... i cant believe this happened to me...

honestly, i was a bit of a player, not in the emotional sense, i never lied to anyone, just got mine and with relative ease...

but i was always safe... i had unprotected sex with my girlfriend in high school, but i was her second sexual parter and she was my first unprotected so we were fresh.. after that relationship ended, i always wrapped up, i even had the nickname magnum man from a couple girls cuz i would be so adamant that everyone wrap up...

over christmas break i went home from the city to my parents house and a night of drinking at the bar lead to goin home with a random girl.. i slipped up.. one night, one time, one girl, and now i'm infected for life

i just forgot to bring condoms home, didnt think i'd need em, then when things started developping, she was confident in her birth control and i figured what were the chances.. 3 years protected safe sex and 1 session with a small town girl, i was more concerned with pregnancy than anything... boy was i wrong..

so i returned home and a couple days later it burned when i pissed, so i went to the doc, he did a swab and gave me a prescription for chlamidia and gonorhea drugs, that was on a wednesday.. on saturday, peeing still hurt and i noticed a small red bump in the shower...cue panic.. so i went to the emergency room

doctor there said everything was probably fine and gave it a 10% chance of being herpes.. did the culture swab and the wait was on...

monday lead to the discovery of more bumps, intense panic ensued, i was holding out that it was just some sort of chlamidia related bump cuz doctor said herpes would be more then one.. since i found more, now that 10% figure isnt so promising.. so i'm callin the clinic and hospital searching for test results, nothing was back yet...

which meant for the swab on wednesday: negative, i wouldve heard by then if i was positive, which means it wasnt clap/drip.. more panic
tuesday rolled around and i got the call: positive for herpes
so today its wednesday.. i've kinda come to terms with the fact that i have this, but i still dont know what it means for me... i'm 21, i had no plans of settling down in a relationship, i feel like i squandered everything i had going for me, i'm terrified i can never get head again for the rest of my life, i'm on day 2 of the valtrex.. i'm just a giant whirlwind of information right now and the whole thing is overwhelming..

i dont know what kind of response i'm looking for here, but if you took the time to read this, hit reply with anything... honestly, as corny as it sounds, it felt incredibly good reading 'you are not alone' on a couple of these information sites, as i was always alone by choice, and now i feel like i'm gonna stay that way.. i never knew how huge of a problem this was and how many people it affected..

Answer:
It is not the end of your sex life. You just have to be honest and careful. Your carefree days are over...now the adult responsibility. A lot of people just refrained from sex for years just while they had outbreaks and never passed it on. My husband had herpes for 15 years before he married me and never passed it on. I got it from him after 21 years. You do have a responsibility to inform your partners that they are taking a risk,though small, when you don't have an outbreak. Honor their feelings. Continue with the condoms...especially if they cover your infected area. If you don't have a OB it is safe for someone to give you head....transmission of type 2 to the mouth is "very rare". Over time your OB's will become few and far between and it will become less of an issue.

Do research from educational sources and get support from the message board.

Good luck to you.

Answer:
thanks for the response... i got some close friends who are offering support but no one really knows what i'm goin thru.... shit, this only became real yesterday, I dont even know what i'm goin thru yet.. feels good to have someone who lived thru it tell you its gonna be ok.. lot more believable that way hahaha


i went and bought some vitamins and lysine pills today.. i'm paranoid like whoa about transferring it to other parts of my body..
i keep biting my lip from thinking too hard and now i'm paranoid that every whisker bump or mark on my face is another infection, thought i spread it to my finger, i'm just buggin cuz since i only found out yesterday, i might've touched and cross contaminated by accident sometime in the days before not knowing the nature of the beast.. every itch or tingle i feel anywhere on my body, even for a split second, i think i spread it.. afraid to rub sleep out of my eyes lol...


urgent question: the infection for me seems to be mainly in the foreskin and my dick is decently sized, should i be worried about my dick laying against my leg while sleeping? will this promote sores on my legs? since this is my first outbreak from the reading i've been doing its supposedly the most contagious.. if it spreads to my legs now then i'm almost garunteed to pass it on regardless of condom use right? is this common? most of the info sites dont answer paranoid questions like this.. during this first outbreak is there anything i can do to lock it down where it is or is it too late already?

??!??

Answer:
Much like you I slipped up over christmas...but there wasn't even penetration (you can read the boring details in a previous thread).

I'm also in the adjustment mode...one really good friend knows and the guy himself...but no one else. It's weird...it's shit...and I have to say I'm glad I've posted in this forum as the support is great. Yep we're not alone!

I don't know when I'll cross the sex bridge again (and of course getting used to telling a potential partner), but some of the stories of people getting through it and finding a partner after being diagnosed give me some hope.

As for locking it down...I tried to keep myself clean and dry and not let "uninfected" skin near anything infected...but I'm only a newbie so search through the forums on treatments to get some ideas too...

Good luck with getting your head around it.

Answer:
tried sleeping in a condom to keep everything contained, but woke up paranoid about moisture and removed it, and put a sock around my dick..
it fell off in the middle of the night and everytime i adjusted it i had to go wash my hands cuz i was freakin out i'd spread it..

this is easily the worst part for me right now...

right now i got a pretty decent handle on things except the afore mentioned spreading paranoia and what to do about semi current partners..

thats the hugest issue i got... with new sexual partners, i can cross that bridge when i come to it, but what about people that were already across to my island, and now are gonna be very confused as to why they cant come back? coming out and saying the island is infested will ruin the entire tourism industry at this point.. so the dilemma lies in what to say to girls i had semi long standing off and on 'friendships' with.. i still like these girls and dont wanna scare them away, also not ready to have the whole world know... and one of these girls lives in another city, so it's gonna be extra hard to duck her when she comes back as shes gonna wanna spend most of her time here having sex.. completely unaware of whats happened in the time since shes been gone...

i tend to think things thru to the final step, but i only got diagnosed tuesday, i dont even know what step 2 is gonna be like and my brain is on this vicious cycle...

i smoke weed everyday too, and thats a doosie as smoking = bad for immune system but weed = regulates my stress...

i feel like quittin weed will send me on more of a downward spiral as it's like nothing i knew will be the same, but i'm fucking terrified of this shit and dont know what to do...

people have no idea what its like to be afraid of their own penis..

this used to be my pride and joy, it was big, thick, proportioned right, really good dick, girls would tell me it was the nicest they ever saw (probably bullshit, but i got compliments on this shit regularly)

and now i wanna cut it the fuck off my body, i'm disgusted at how i feel about myself as i flying high 2 weeks ago...

i make music and i feel like this is gonna affect my career as image is all based on public opinion and i cant be honest and open with people and expect to build a name for myself with all the social stigma that goes along with this.. ARRGHGHHHHHHH


heres another question i've come up with:
i'm uncircumsized and most of my breakout seems to be in/on the foreskin, when people have recurrences, are they in the same place as the first OB or will these migrate to all over my dickhead (now i only have 1 or 2 on the actual head)? if they stay in the same place, would circumcision possibly help reduce my symptoms as most of the affected area would be removed?

i cant stop thinking.. this cant be good for me right now

Answer:
recurences are sometimes in the same place.....for me it is always in the same two places. For my boyfriend he has only had one outbreak, which was the first outbreak last year that led us to find out about having this. He has never had another outbreak until once last week and it was in the exact same spot as a year ago. He is lucky....only gets one little bump/sore and this is only his second one ever. I get it all the time and dont have typical symptoms.....mine is a rash and feeling like cuts, but there is nothing on my skin when you look at it. So, it is hard to say if it will come back in other areas. Most people I have heard of get it in the same area every time they have an outbreak so maybe that will be your case too. As for the idea of getting circumsized...not sure about that one....ask youe doctor. I dont think that will help much though but I am not an expert. I would be afraid that if you did that it might appear in other places as well or instead ya know? who knows....ask your doctor.

Remember....you're not alone....I know it seems that way....but there are so many people with it....as you can see from this website alone. It is hardest to be diagnosed young.....feels like your life is over I know.....I am 23.....got diagnosed last year.

Answer:
I just found out I had herpes 2 days ago... so I'm finding the whole thing pretty terrifying too. 20 years old and definetly feel like I f'd up my future =( *hugs*

I know what you mean about the paranoia about spreading it. My hands are pretty dry and cracking everywhere because I've been complusively washing them in fear of spreading something. I keep checking around my mouth and down below for anything new. Any new pain on my body makes me paranoid.

but this forum looks pretty good for emotional support and help with dealing with the whole thing. Hope you find a way to get through this. I admire those people who can still be upbeat and strong despite getting something like cancer or losing a limb or whatnot... so hopefully we can be like that =)

Answer:
mine is a rash and feeling like cuts, but there is nothing on my skin when you look at it. i got sores on my dick, but i feel that on my upper thighs, like i said earlier i fear i spread it there from my dick laying against my leg during sleep or relaxation...

there are no marks on the skin, doesnt even really look red or anything, but it feels like i'm chafed up or something..
honestly, i got a tiny little blister where my left ass cheek meets my leg too, but since that showed up before sores on my dick, i just thought it was from laying around the house, as when i thought it was chlamidia i just parked it on the couch and waited for my pee to stop burning..

i'm scared that in that 3-4 day time frame where i thought i was getting cured and thought i had a heat sore/chafe situation that i might've touched it and spread it to my fingers and eyes...

went back to work tonight, got hit on, had to tell girls i might have a hernia so my back/groin hurts too bad to have sex...

strange urges just to blurt out that i have herpes as to get it over with instead of the long drawn out process of ducking every request in order to keep my pride intact.. feelin really self destructive as i feel like i'm already down for the count...


this is ridiculous, i would never wish this on anyone, and yet, i dont even know what it holds in store for me... i guess i just never wish this fear/deep sadness on someone, as it turns them into their own worst enemy

Answer:
pretty sure i spread it to my left index finger, and i have 3 small bumps not red but visible when i go in close on my left bottom eyelid, look kinda like tiny pimples but in my eyelashes


i already have the herpes virus and its not like i can take more pills or more vitamins then i would've just for my gential issue, but this is adding to the stress and feeling of it all being 'over'


motherfuck... i just wanna wake up and have this not be real..