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Your Essential Guide to HSV-2: Herpes Symptoms, Causes, and Prevention.   

Read the blog and find out everything about HSV-2, from herpes symptoms and transmission risks to treatment options and prevention tips.

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Symptoms, causes, and treatment for herpes

Herpes is an infection caused by HSV (herpes simplex virus). This virus affects the external genitalia, anal region, mucosal surfaces, and skin in other parts of the body.

Herpes is a long-term condition. However, many people never have symptoms even though they are carrying the virus.

Symptoms include blisters, ulcers, pain when urinating, cold sores, and vaginal discharge. Although there is no cure for herpes, it can be treated using medications and home remedies.

In this article, we discuss the symptoms of herpes, how to treat it, and how to avoid it.

Fast facts about herpes:

There are two types of herpes simplex viruses: HSV-1 (herpes type 1, or oral herpes) and HSV-2 (herpes type 2, or genital herpes).

More than 50 percent of people in the United States have HSV-1.

Around 15.5 percent of people in the U.S. aged 14-49 have HSV-2.

Receiving oral sex from somebody who has cold sores around their mouth significantly raises the risk of becoming infected.

It is impossible to get genital herpes from a toilet seat.

If you are infected with HSV, 10 days before the painful and itchy sores appear...

Your eyes look exactly like this...

Symptoms

Most people do not experience symptoms for months or years after becoming infected. Those who do have symptoms during the initial period will usually notice them about 4 days after exposure (the average range is 2-12 days).

Many people with HSV have recurring herpes. When a person is first infected, the recurrences tend to happen more frequently. Over time, however, the remission periods get longer, and each occurrence tends to become less severe.

Primary infection symptoms

Primary infection is a term used for an outbreak of genital herpes that occurs when a person is first infected. The symptoms can be quite severe and may include:

blisters and ulceration on external genitalia, in the vagina, or on the cervix

vaginal discharge

pain and itching

tender, enlarged lymph nodes

pain when urinating

high temperature (fever)

malaise (feeling unwell)

cold sores around the mouth

red blisters on the skin

In most cases, the ulcers will heal, and the individual will not have any lasting scars.

Recurrent infection symptoms

Symptoms that occur in a recurrent infection tend to be less severe and do not last as long as they do in the primary infection stage. Typically, symptoms will last no more than 10 days and include:

burning or tingling around genitals before blisters appear

women may have blisters and ulceration on the cervix

cold sores around the mouth

red blisters

Eventually, recurrences happen less often and are much less severe.

Causes

When HSV is present on the surface of the skin of an infected person, it can easily be passed on to someone else through the moist skin that lines the mouth, anus, and genitals. The virus may also spread to another individual through other areas of skin, as well as the eyes.

A human cannot become infected with HSV by touching an object, work surface, washbasin, or towel that has been touched by an infected person. Infection can occur in the following ways:

having unprotected vaginal or anal sex

having oral sex with a person who gets cold sores

sharing sex toys

having genital contact with an infected person

The virus is most likely to be passed on just before the blister appears, when it is visible, and until the blister is completely healed. HSV can still be transmitted to another person when there are no signs of an outbreak, although it is less likely.

If a mother with genital herpes has sores while giving birth, it is possible that the infection will be passed on to the baby.

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If you are infected with HSV, 10 days before the painful and itchy sores appear...

Your eyes look exactly like this...

Treatment

There are a variety of treatment options. These include:

Home remedies

Several home remedies can help, including:

taking painkillers, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen

bathing in lightly salted water helps relieve symptoms

soaking in a warm sitz bath

applying petroleum jelly to the affected area

avoiding tight clothing around the affected area

washing hands thoroughly, especially after touching the affected area

refraining from sexual activity until symptoms have gone

If urinating is painful, apply some cream or lotion to the urethra, for example, lidocaine

Some people find that using ice packs can help. Never apply ice directly to the skin, always wrap it in a cloth or towel first.

The medical establishment is in an uproar...

After this female scientist released a protocol that you can do at home, to avoid, reduce, and possibly eliminate the effect of herpes.

There's a reason why our traditional medical system cannot do anything about the herpes virus and why this new technology is providing hope for all people with herpes.

Medication

No drug can get rid of the herpes virus. Doctors may prescribe an antiviral, such as acyclovir, which prevents the virus from multiplying. Antiviral medications will help the outbreak clear up faster and will also help reduce the severity of symptoms.

Doctors usually prescribe antivirals the first time a person has symptoms. As recurrent outbreaks are usually mild, treatment is not usually necessary.

Episodic treatment and suppressive treatment

Episodic treatment is generally for people who have less than six recurrences in 1 year. Doctors may prescribe a 5-day course of antivirals each time symptoms appear.

Doctors prescribe suppressive treatment if a person experiences more than six recurrences in a year. In some cases, a doctor my recommend that the individual takes daily antiviral treatment indefinitely. The aim here is to prevent further recurrences. Although suppressive treatment significantly reduces the risk of passing HSV to a partner, there is still a risk.

Prevention tips

To reduce the risk of developing or passing on genital herpes:

use condoms when having sex

do not have sex while symptoms are present (genital, anal, or skin-to-skin)

do not kiss when there is a cold sore around the mouth

do not have many sexual partners

Some people find that stress, being tired, illness, friction against the skin, or sunbathing may trigger recurrences of symptoms. Identifying and avoiding these triggers may help reduce the number of recurrences.

Find out more from this short video:

Your eyes linked to herpes breakouts.

[herpesaintbad]

Here goes

After trawling through pages and pages on the internet over the past few months i've come to a very definite confusion; every single person on the planet who gets herpes thinks they're all alone, dirty and bound to end up single for life with an army of cats. 

I made this blog to share my story. Apologies for the length of this post. It won't always be this bad. 

Let me introduce myself; I am 22 years old and currently live in Melbourne, Australia. I study Law. I have a great group of girlfriends, a loving boyfriend who likes to buy me things and, as you've probably concluded, genital herpes. 

How do I know I have genital herpes? A swab? No. A blood test? No. I just know. 

You might think I am all sorts of crazy by now.  But hear me out. It's a long story. 

I have been with my boyfriend on and off for four and a half years now. Six months ago we decided to go on a break. Well, I decided. Because I wanted new things. I was being selfish; I wanted to see other guys. I'm human, so sue me. 

I wouldn't say I'm promiscuous, but during my "single time" I met someone. Someone who was not good for me at all, but who taught me a lot about myself. I won't go into too much detail but he wasn't a model citizen or anything. He was everything girls usually go for; dangerous, fast, foreign. Anyway, on July 2nd 2014 I went to his house for one of our usual romps. We began to fool around, oral sex, touching, you know.. the usual. He rubbed his dick over the outside of my lady bits, never putting it in though, because I always insisted on condoms. When I began to put the condom on for him, I noticed one tiny bump; it wasn't coloured, or blister-like or anything, but I was still curious. "Um, what is that?" I said, in a total mood-killing way. "It's just a pimple, don't stress, I'm clean". I'm a pretty confident and outspoken person, so I said I wasn't in the mood anymore, pulling my underwear on and walked into the bathroom. He was offended but I couldn't care less. I just felt something wasn't right so I put my clothes on and left. 

The very next night, not even 24 hours later, I was out for coffee with a girlfriend when my upper-gum began to hurt. I went to the bathroom, inspected inside my mouth, and surely there was an "ulcer" forming on the bony area of my gum. My mind immediately thought it was herpes, but I brushed it off as a canker sore and continued on with my evening. 

Two days later, I was in bed with the "flu". Headaches, sore throat, fever. "Great" I thought. I've caught oral-herpes. I wasn't even fussed at this point because my sister gets cold sores and no one has ever judged her. At least I don't have it down-there I thought... now THAT would be a disaster. 

The next night I got a very sore, itchy knuckle on my index finger of my left hand while I was cooking for my best friend and I. I brushed it off as perhaps an insect bite. I went to sleep and woke up in the morning with a slight shallow sore appearing. No... It can't be. Google: "herpes on hand" Result: herpetic whitlow. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. Wait, "it doesn't show up until about 2-3 weeks after exposure". Okay, phew, I'm safe. Just overreacting. 

Two days passed, the sore healed up fairly quickly. Then... shooting pains near the base of my spine. Tinging thighs. Sore lady area. HOLY FUCKING SHIT NO. I cried. I cried. I cried some more. 2 weeks in bed. Crying. Hyperventilating. There was no denying it now. So I slept 20 hours a day. It was uni holidays so it made it easy to call into work with the "flu" and not have any other commitments.

I thought about suicide. What would hurt less... getting hit by a train or jumping off a cliff? What if I had HIV too? Yeah, I probably have HIV I thought. I might as well kill myself. I know this sounds melodramatic but I want to be completely open and honest with my readers. This is how I was feeling. By this point, only my sister and mum knew. I couldn't tell my closest friends; they've made jokes about herpes! What the fuck was I going to do? 

A day after the genital symptoms appeared I made an appointment with my local GP clinic. They took swabs of the mouth ulcer, hand ulcer and genital region even though there weren't any visible sores down there. "Yes it sounds like you have caught herpes. I will give you one prescription of Acyclovir in the meantime until the swab comes back" said my nice young lady doctor. Feeling totally out-of- body and ready to give up on life, I went to the pharmacy to fill the prescription. "$80.50" the pharmacist said. I stared blankly at the small elderly asian pharmacist and asked why it was so expensive. Apparently you need a positive test result before they give it to you at the reduced PBS price of $6.00. So I paid the $80 and ran out clutching my brown paper bag. Sure enough, symptoms subsided dramatically after 2 days of taking the medication. Hmm. I definitely have genital herpes, I thought. 

Three days later I dragged my older sister with me for moral support while I got my test result. "The swabs came back negative. You're all good." said my doctor - just like that; "you're all good".

Of course, I'd been researching herpes online for about 15 hours per day for nearly 2 weeks by this stage and had read that the swabs can be highly inaccurate (around 70% false negative!). I asked the doctor how accurate these swabs were and she told me it was highly unlikely they were wrong, and that I was herpes free. Where the fuck do these people get their medical degrees from? I had been taking my Acyclovir as prescribed and my symptoms had completely disappeared, so I went on my way feeling slightly better, but still concerned. I mean, I had the oral, hand and genital symptoms, that has to be the biggest coincidence of all time, right? 

I was "herpes free" so I stopped popping the pills. Sure enough, a few days later, the lovely tinging, itching and painful urination came back like a long lost friend. Fuck. Depression hit again. I took 15 lysine pills a day. I drank olive leaf extract. I read blogs. I researched vaccines. I emailed vaccine researchers. I went psycho.

I went straight back to the doctors and demanded a blood test. After blood was taken I demanded to have another prescription of Acyclovir since they worked for me last time. "Sorry, we can't give you that until you test positive." said my new doctor. "But, I've read antibodies don't show up in blood work until about 3-6 months after infection, what the hell do I do until then?" I asked. The doctor looked at me with pity, but offered no real solution. Fuckers. What do they expect people to do? 

My ex boyfriend and I were still in contact and on good terms by this stage and he had noticed how down I had been. One night, he asked what was wrong and I simply burst into tears and told him. I thought he'd be disgusted in me, but he simply hugged me and told me i'd be fine. He also said it wasn't even a big deal. I realised how stupid I was to have ever left him, but I also thought he would never want me back after this. I was wrong. We spent two weeks together after this and the rest is history. We are back together and stronger than ever. I still haven't received an "official" diagnosis but I told him I am certain that it is herpes. I refuse to have sex with him until after my blood work which is scheduled for October two months away. 

I have told two of my closest friends, my cousin, my sister and my mother. And you know what? NONE of them have judged me. My cousin is a nurse and said it's the most common virus in the world. My best friend and I make jokes about herpes ourselves now. My other friend gets cold sores and sympathises with the prodromal symptoms I sometimes get. My boyfriend wants to have sex despite my situation, but I refuse until I get a proper diagnosis. 

Life isn't over with herpes. It just makes you realise that you need to eat well, rest well, stress less and trust the right people. I know it sounds silly, but grieve as much as you need to when you first get diagnosed. But do not let it define you long-term. I lost nearly a month of my life being depressed over this, but you know what? It didn't change anything. I still have this virus. Being depressed doesn't get rid of it. Just put a smile on your face and know that with time, the symptoms lessen and so does the psychological anguish. 

Please ask me any questions you may have; I am a self-professed herpes expert now! 

T xoxo