Nasal + Genital herpes

Posted , 6 users are following.

Hello folks, went into a relationship and got nasal and genital herpes from my ex-gf.

The nasal infection (left nostril) was heavy, it felt like I had lit a lighter in the nose, it really was a nightmare. The genital one, by it's turn, was very light, only light ardor, without blisters or sores stuff. Used aciclovir (oral+local) and after some weeks my left nostril (the infected one) is already "normal", however, the genital one, is still very light but persistent and recurrent, kinda confused about it.

And no, i didn't visited a doctor because i have no time and, sincerely, we all known that he will only tell me that herpes has no cure and that i should treat it with supressive treatment using aciclovir and to avoid those variants that may cause outbreaks. I have a friend who is a doctor and he told me this either " Well man, we both known that there is nothing that you or he can do about that. "

Anyway, there's lots os things that i couldn't find a good answer on the internet as " Can i kiss other people having CONTROLLED NASAL herpes + supressive oral medication  without taking the risk to contamin her? "

Herpes is transmited via saliva even if mine is a nasal one?.

0 likes, 5 replies

5 Replies

  • Posted

    Hi Sevka

    Firstly, herpes is not passed via saliva. It is passed through skin-to-skin contact. So if you have an active outbreak e.g. blisters or you feel itching/tingling/any funny feelings in the normal outbreak areas, then you are HIGHLY infectious and can pass it on to anyone! So if your blisters on your nose touch someone's lips or genitals, they have a high chance of catching it; the same with your genitals.

    I think you aren't infectious if there is no sign of an outbreak i.e. blisters or sores but you are also infectious if you have any of those feelings in the skin, nerves, pain down your legs or in your buttocks - anything that feels out of the ordinary - then you are most probably starting an infection because the virus is replicating and you are infectious!!! You can pass the infection from your nose to someone else's genitals and vice versa; HSV1 (sores on the face) can be passed on to genitals so if you give oral sex, with sores or tingles/itches, you can infect the receiver of oral sex with the virus on their genitals. So, please just be very careful and you need to warn any potential partners/friends that you have this virus and explain the risks to them.

  • Posted

    Herpes is spread from skin to skin contact with infected and virally shedding skin. I would think that as long as it's not during an outbreak, transmission might be limited to the around 5% of the year asymptomatic viral shedding. At least that's the shed rate I've read many times online for hsv2 when occurring genitally. It could be different for hsv1 orally and hsv1 hardly sheds at all genitally.

    To answer your question, and know what risk of transmission is to your partners etc, you need to know what strain you have. Hsv2 rarely infects anywhere other than genitals. You probably have hsv1 in nose and maybe genitals or maybe also hsv2 genitally.

    • Posted

      Thank you Sarah!  Your answer has been the simplest and straight forward. I am experiencing sores  in my nose, the 2 time in over a year. I thought it might be shingles because it is in my nose. I had a swab test yesterday and the results were HSV2 as positive and 1 as negative.  I was diagnosed with hsv2 34 years ago when I was 18. Now after all these years it makes its way to my nose?   I’m confused. Married 24 years same person he has never shown any signs of the virus.   Your thoughts would be welcome? 

    • Posted

      Sounds like the swab test for hsv2 was for your nose so I'm going to go with that.  Supposedly after having HSV for a while past your initial ob, you produce enough antibodies to avoid auto-infection (a person already infected infecting another part of their body).  I don't really know but maybe your nose got infected years ago and took this long to OB.    Or possibly somehow your immunity got low enough to autoinfect years after initial ob.  I think I read once about a guy who auto infected his eye a few years after his initial ob.  They say in early years OBs come 5-8x a year and by about 3 yrs, maybe once per yr and barely noticible.   While docs say autoinfection is most likely during initial, I think maybe it's still possible enough in first years for it to be measurable risk.   I got oral ob only about 6mos after my initial... That or I may have had oral hsv1or2 much of my life and never thought anything of an occasional Oral blister till after I contracted genital HSV.   I don't think you had blisters in your nose and didn't notice tho!  That's really painful!  

      So far as your husband never having symptoms, either he has never caught it or he has it and is asymptomatic or symptoms are mild enough to not be noticible.   80% infected people don't know they carry it for this reason.  If you or he are curious, he could get a blood test for HSV.   I would be curious myself. Please share results if you guys do that.  My insurance covered nearly all my testing I think I paid about $20. 

    • Posted

      Thanks for your reply. I do find it very interesting after all these years too. For sure ob’s have lesson over the years. They were multiple at first and especially when I wasn’t taking care of myself.  I have had maybe 10 in the last 20 years and maybe 5-6 got to open sore status.   When this happened last year my 11 year old son just got hit by a car and was in the hospital for over a month with traumatic brain injury.   Perhaps the level of stress could have transferred it to an area similar to the vaginal area??  I have always been attentive with hygiene and hand washing knowing the contagious level but perhaps I did transfer at sometime??  Thanks Sarah! 

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