Can anyone help me understand this?

In November I had a few sexual encounters with a man who later told me he has herpes. Initially, I was shocked, but ultimately decided it wasn't going to change my mind on pursuing him until a few days later when he put an end to it. I accept that, it is what it is. Now here I am in the aftermath trying to make sense of blood tests with no one to go to for advice. 10 days after our last sexual contact I thought I was having an outbreak but turns out it was a bacterial infection. At that point it was 2 weeks after my last exposure and my HSV2 was negative with an index volume of .0617. Now I am positive for HSV1, I have had this since high school, I get cold sores so that wasn't a surprise. I continue to have issues with a bacterial infection so I had to go back to the doctor last week for more testing. At this point it was 6 weeks since last sexual contact with this man and I asked for another round of bloodwork for HSV2. Once again it has come back negative with an index volume of .0529. I'm trying to understand these index volumes. I know that a positive result is 1.1 or higher but does everyone have some type of index level? I know I should have waited the full 12 weeks at least to be tested but this hard, stressful, and frustrating to wait. When I did the rest at 6 weeks it was really to see if my level had increased any, which it hasn't. Can I trust these results or do I need another test? Even if it wasn't enough to be considered a positive, wouldn't my index volume have increased to some degree by the 6 week mark? I am so confused and have no one to turn to. Thank you for any help!!

Hi, @Groot2013. Just because you had sex with someone who has HSV, does not mean that you have it or would have gotten it from him. By six weeks post-exposure, 70% of those infected would have a positive test result (over 1.1). It’s not until you get to 16 weeks post exposure that 97% of those infected will test positive. The test is never going to be zero. It’s just the way the test is done. The IgG test isn’t testing for the virus, it’s testing for antibodies that your body produces in response to the virus. Everyone infected with HSV makes antibodies at different rates. For peace of mind, go ahead and retest at 16 weeks. As of right now, it looks like the odds are in your favor that you did not get HSV from this previous partner.

@HikingGirl thank you so much for your response. I did all the research I could but was left rather confused. It didn't help that the last doctor I saw told me it was pointless to do blood work at all since I wouldn't get a positive result until I had an outbreak. This left me even more confused especially when the doctors I have gone to pretty much came off like it was no question that I was infected it was just waiting until an outbreak happened. I'm from a rather small town where they don't seem to know much. Thank you again for your response. I greatly appreciate it!!

You’re in good company. I live in a big city and the doctors here don’t seem to know much about HSV either! :)