starting a new life

after years of being in a mentally abusive long term relationship with a chronic cheater and liar, I finally left him. he gave me hsv1 and hpv (cancer kind) i am so scared of the thought of reentering the dating scene like this. i know I will have to tell people that I have these things. but of course only people I'm serious about. I'm not interested in flings . I want a happy life with someone who will treat me right and build a life together. how.. when..do i say these things?

speaking of...i am having another outbreak :/ i called the doctor to get medicine, they usually just send the prescription...but this time they told me that since it's been so long since I've been in I have to make an appointment for a new prescription...i don't really understand why I have to do this. It's a chronic disease ....nothing has changed... what's the point?

@ann1626 good for you for getting out of that relationship! I just read over your other post and I'm happy that you're taking care of yourself! The disclosure section of this forum would be the most helpful in how/when to disclose. From the posts I've read, everyone does it differently. Some place it on their dating profile, some tell people on the first/second date, some wait until they know they have a connection with the person, some send them a text message. I found out I have gHSV1 after I was already engaged to the man I'm with, telling him my fears before I was diagnosed was terrifying mostly because I already had two years invested and had no idea how it was even possible to have it! As for HPV - I've read that 80% of all sexually active people get some strain of HPV in their lifetime. Most just don't know! If there is no "active" infection, its not detected. From my understanding, when pap smears are done they can detect an *active* infection. Someone can have an active infection and clear it on their own and never know about it - which is what happens the vast majority of the time. They don't have much of a way to test men at this time so any man you're telling, based on statistics, probably has or has had some strain of it at some point in their life

Sometimes doctors I feel just find a reason to have patients come in, but then again they may have an obligation to see you every so often in order to treat you. Is it your gyno? Maybe they want to see you if you haven't been in for the normal yearly appt.

@ash2018 thank you for reading and for your advice. it is planned parenthood that I initially went to ...at the time i didnt have insurance. i get pap smears through a gyno...which i do have an appointment soon and i will discuss this with them... i just have been going through pp because they diagnosed me and told me all i had to do was call and i could get the prescription ... but when i go to my gyno i will see if i can get the meds from them from now on. the hpv showed up a year ago in my pap but my pap came back normal, which means no sign of cancer...they said that it could go away on its own... this next pap .. if it comes back abnormal they will have to do tests to see if i have cancer cells...which is a scary thought. but hopefully it will be ok.

I did hear of a scary thing about getting hpv in the throat with can cause throat cancer. but there are no tests for that yet.

@ash2018 they prescribe me acyclovir...i read some of your post and you mentioned you take valtrex...im not sure which is better as ive olny used the one...but maybe i should ask them about it when i go

@ann1626 I actually just switched to acyclovir last week as I felt valtrex was making me having prodromal symptoms (tingles, zings, stings, etc). They're both equally effective! Some people respond better to one over another or prefer one over another. But effectiveness wise they're generally both effective meds. I take mine suppressively instead of episodically. As for the hpv, fingers crossed that everything comes back normal this time and your system has cleared it on its own! It happens all the time so there's a good chance it will. Typically if you have precancerous or cancerous cells your pap will be abnormal indicating there are atypical cells there

@ash20 i was thinking about starting to take it suppressively ... does it really prevent outbreaks? you have to take it everyday? i dont like taking medication thats why i have only taken it during ob... but maybe i should start taking it...seeing as how im going to start dating people

@ann1626 I've only been taking it since June (my first outbreak was at the beginning of June), so I'm not the best to ask about effectiveness in preventing outbreaks, from a personal experience standpoint. I know that I've had the virus a period of time and this was my first recognizable outbreak. A lot of people have had success with it, there is one woman on here who has had it over 20 years and started suppressive therapy to cut down on her number of outbreaks and it brought it from several a year to none. Its very individual but the idea is that it decreases viral replication therein decreasing outbreaks as well as asymptomatic shedding. This would be helpful to future partners as it would lower risk of transmission to them. A couple things work in your favor for rate of transmission here - ghsv1 *typically* sheds less, ghsv1 is said to be harder to pass from genital to genital (but still *can* be passed this way, and can also be passed genital to oral), a large percentage of the population has oral hsv1 which would provide some protection to them from contracting it genitally, you're a woman and woman to man transmission rates are lower as men have less mucous membrane down below. HSV1 prefers the mouth, if they've had the virus there for years (which people can carry even if they've *never* had a cold sore) its well established there and they're less likely to contract it in another location that is not its preferred location (genitals), if that makes sense. Essentially, if you take daily antivirals and use condoms and avoid sex during outbreaks, you have a 1-2% (around there) chance of passing it to an H- partner. If you don't use condoms but you do the other two things (avoiding during OBs and take suppressive meds) that risk only increases slightly percentage wise.

I'm not a huge fan of taking medication, and you may not always need to take it, but I look at it this way - if there's something out there that I can take once or twice a day to help cut down on how much this virus impacts my life, why not take it?! Especially when the medications (valtrex and acyclovir) have been proven to be safe to take for many years. I always say I won't be someone who takes a list of medications the length of my arm, but I won't object to having some help from a medication to keep this virus in check and decrease its impact on my life

Good to hear from you, @ann1626! It made my day to read that you've left the abusive relationship you were in. That takes a lot of courage and I really respect that.

It's common for doctors to want to see you about once a year to renew medication. I've had mild asthma for nearly 20 years and I still have to go in yearly just to show my face so I can get my inhaler renewed.

@ash2018 wow ya... you're right...i shouldnt be afraid to take the meds every day...i should be more afraid of an ob! and thank you so much for all your knowledge and advice...i feel a lot better :)

@hikinggirl ok so ya...i guess it seems routine for doctors to do this. i was just confused ...i was like just give me the meds! lol but ya i made an appointment