Who gave me this, if I have it at all?

Hi, 38 year old guy here. Got divorced last year after lengthy marriage and started dating a great woman who I eventually started having unprotected sex with. After one particular weekend of lots of sex I noticed a small group of two or three blister looking bumps under my foreskin. I had no other symptoms and they went after a few days so, after looking online, I deduced it was more of an abrasion thing after having had vigorous sex.

A few weeks later, during a stressful period of life I noticed tingling in my pelvic area above my penis that lasted a couple of weeks...I didn't for one minute associate the two though and it stopped after my stress was over.

The woman and I split up and I went on to have a one night stand where I received unprotected oral sex, and protected sex.

Finally, I briefly dated a girl and we had unprotected oral sex only one night. I then found out this girl had quite the sexual past and was concerned. We also stopped dating. I went for standard std tests which were all negative.

Now, the last girl texted me out of the blue asking if I knew I was a HSV2 carrier. I replied and said I didn't and asked for more info but she won't reply to my texts.

I have not been tested, have never had any more blisters, lesions, marks etc but I do have periods of that tingling feeling in my pelvic area, usually when stressed.

My questions are: does it sound like I probably do have HSV2 and if so, did I most likely get it from girl number 1?

Thank you

You should go ahead and get tested.

It can take a while for your immune system to develop enough antibodies to test in the positive range on the blood test. If you develop any strange "ingrown hairs" or "abrasions" you can get a culture swab done on them, which is a much more accurate test.

There is probably more stress involved with not knowing. Equally importantly, if you happen to be H+, you will want to know and develop some new habits to prevent transmitting it to future partners or to different parts of your own body.

Still get tested, there are clinics that will do this for reduced cost or free.

If you have insurance, I recommend that you see your primary care physician about it.

Thank you, I will do.

As for my other question, do you think the first girl is the most likely person I got this from? She wants to get back together and I want to also so it's kind of important.

Your symptoms sound a lot like HSV, yes. Unless *all of partners in your lifetime* got tested and only the first girl after your divorce tested positive, there's no way to know for sure where you got it from. It's also possible you acquired it before or during your marriage (I was married for 15 years, was positive all that time with no idea, and my ex later tested negative). Start getting educated, get tested, and just be honest with the first girl. That's my simplified answer since I'm headed out the door!

A couple of additional thoughts now that I'm home and have read your post again....

Nearly 90% of those with HSV2 (usually genital, but it's possible--but uncommon--to have oral HSV2) have no symptoms, or symptoms so mild that they're mistaken for other things (rashes, ingrown hairs, yeast infections, etc.).  For those with HSV1 (usually oral, but genital HSV1 is on the rise due to the increase in oral sex), only a third ever have a cold sore.  

For a genital infection, the virus lives in the nerves and periodically travel down nerve pathways and exit the body.  Sometimes that results in an outbreak or at least the tingles you feel, but both types of HSV can exit the skin with no symptoms whatsoever. There is no way to know when "asymptomatic shedding" is happening.

For those who have an initial outbreak, that outbreak usually happens roughly 2-12 days after acquiring the virus.  If what you experienced last year with the first girl was indeed an initial outbreak, then it would make sense that you likely acquired the virus from her.

However, HSV is tricky.  There are plenty of people who carry HSV for years--decades even--with no noticeable symptoms, and then have an outbreak out of the blue.  In my case, outbreaks usually look like itching and some redness.  When I tested positive last year for HSV1 and HSV2, and both my ex-husband and the guy I was seeing at the time tested negative, so I knew I had picked up the viruses 18-25 years earlier.  I had my very first (and so far only) outbreak with an actual raised bump last fall.  So anything is possible.

If you choose to get tested, the blood test you want is the IgG.  Many doctors use the IgM test, which is notoriously unreliable, so ignore those results if they're included.  Also, be prepared for the fact that many (if not most) health care providers are woefully uneducated or under-educated about HSV.

There are two ways to test: a blood test or swabbing an active lesion.  You have to have a decent lesion in order for the swab to pick up the virus (I tried once on a typical very mild outbreak and it came back inconclusive).  So the swab measures the virus because an outbreak is the virus exiting the body.

The blood test works differently.  When you acquire the virus, your body starts to produce antibodies to fight the virus. The blood test is testing for the antibodies, not the virus itself.  Some people produce enough antibodies to show up on a test as early as a week or two after exposure.  But it's not until the 16 week mark after exposure that virtually everyone carrying the virus will show positive on the IgG test.  Also, the IgG test does a great job of picking up almost all HSV2 infections, but misses up to a third of HSV1 infections.  

If you take the IgG test and it comes back negative for both strains, you should consider the western blot test, which is much more sensitive.  It's a little trickier to get, so let us help walk you through it if you cross that bridge.  

It's almost unheard of to transfer HSV2 from the mouth to the genitals.  How long has it been since you had sex with girl #2?  (Condoms reduce transmission but don't eliminate the risk entirely.  Skin to skin genital contact can also result in transmission. I'm proof of this since I used condoms with all five partners I had prior to meeting my HSV-negative ex-husband.)

There is really only two ways I can think of for an individual to know for sure who gave him/her HSV.  The first is that all lifetime partners conclusively test negative except for one person.  The second way is if you have a first outbreak, get to the doctor right away and request both a blood test AND a swab test.  If the swab test comes back positive for HSV2, but the blood test comes back negative for HSV2, then you know it was a recent infection because your body is still producing antibodies and you'd test positive on the blood test within a matter of weeks.  If the swab came back positive for HSV1 and the IgG blood test came back negative for HSV1, then you either have a new infection OR it could be an existing infection and the IgG blood test just missed it.

Are you starting to see all of the unknowns? :) Yeah, it's maddening!  Because so few people ever have symptoms of HSV, because of asymptomatic shedding, and because doctors don't routinely include it in STI panels, it just keeps spreading.  Ultimately, it's just a nuisance skin condition with an unfortunate stigma.  If people had any idea how common it is, I'm convinced that the stigma would disappear.  This is one of my favorite graphics depicting how common it is:  http://projectaccept.org/who-gets-hsv/

Finally, one of my favorite initial resources for learning about HSV is here: https://www.westoverheights.com/herpes/the-updated-herpes-handbook/  The author is a nurse practitioner, ran her own STD clinic for over 30 years, is an HSV researcher, and answers the HSV forums on WebMD.  She knows her stuff.  This handbook is an abbreviated version of her full book, which is available on Amazon.  

Sorry so long. :)  Welcome, and let us know if we can answer more questions or support you in any other way.

**Correction**. The IgG misses nearly 10% of HSV1 infections (not up to a third). I sincerely apologize for mixing up my facts and causing confusion! I've double-checked my source but it's too late to correct my earlier post. Sometimes all of these freaking statistics make my head hurt.... :)

Thank you for all the information hikinggirl, this is really useful. I had sex with girl #2 back in early August but I'd had the tingling sensation in June and the blister/s were in May after girl #1. It's all very much confusing to me.

@HikingGirl-

So if a person has a negative result on the IgG and a positive on the IgM, is it possible they do not have herpes at all?

Yes. IgM tests are not reliable.