Someone, please help

Keep your urine diluted, so drink more water, not less. Diluted pee stings far less than concentrated pee. Also, there is a painkiller used for UTIs that turns your urine orange. Forgot the name, but it begins with a P and any doctor should know what it is. Perhaps you can request that. I don't see why it wouldn't help in this instance.

So... this is EXACTLY my first experience of herpes. I was in a lot of pain but unlike other people I still went to work and everything.

My vagina was SO swollen I couldn't even really wash inside of it my boyfriend had to and I had discharge and all that when a HORRIBLE smell and that was my first time ever getting diagnosed with a STI , genital herpes & also BV.

Did you ask the boy who you had oral sex with if he has a past with cold sores ?

Did you tell him what you are going through ??

You definitely should ..

Because sorry to push anything down there but really and definitely sounds like herpes .

My experience was exactly like this ...

Let's pray it isn't & if it isn't count your blessings and know to never let just anybody go down on you .

Hey guys, so i survived my first outbreak, and its been 7 weeks since, the start - [u]the worst week of my life [/u]- with 0 reoccurances, both in the outbreak or the cold sore department, so far.

When I had my first outbreak, I was basically bedridden for a week, i couldn't even walk without pain. - i did occasionally leave my bed, but only if i really needed to do something.

My appitite had completely gone, and by the end of the first week, i began having to force myself to eat - it didnt help that i actually had an outbreak on the back of my throat (specificially just the weird side things) too, which made it painful.

At first i stopped drinking anything cause of the fear i had of urinating, however that quickly changed when i got dehydrated, and began drinking as much as i could to dillute my urine instead - word to the wise girls, dehydrating yourself does more damage than it helps.

My doctor was mad, when he realised i planned to go to work, despite my pain (My first job is working behind a bar, so a lot of running back and forth, my second job is a residential assistant at uni accomodation, so a lot of walking/patrolling), and gave me a doctors note for both work, and for my many many university assignments, which i just could not do due to being unable to sit up to comfortably use my laptop, or even concentrate/not pass out.

So everyday during my outbreak [u]i noted down EXACTLY what i was experiening[/u], i felt an unknown urgency to do so - this is probably the reason.

This advice i gave to other girls threads on how I personally dealt with my ulcers and pain, but i realise i should also put it on my own post, incase one of you identifies with my above struggle and symptoms, and are looking for a way/different way to survive the outbreak.

You MUST keep the [u]entire[/u] area. I made sure i washed when i first woke up, and before i went to sleep. I have a shoebox dedicated to my outbreak, full of cotton discs, creams, vaseline, rubber gloves, information panflets ive collected since, notes i wrote on my outbreak, with updates - if its useful towards an outbreak, you bet it's in my shoebox.

1. Extra strong pain killers - I buy over-the-counter ibprofen with codine tablets, work a treat. Though im a Brit in Aus, so maybe get these prescribed, if you can't get them over the counter.

2. Sleeping pills to help you sleep through pain like a trooper (at night).

3. Microwave heatpack - during the day i would lay a warm one over my entire genital area (obviously with underwear and/or leggings on, and at first it was uncomfortable from the pressure/weight of thing, but the heat really does wonders. I DO NOT MEAN HOT THOUGH. dont burn your junk.

4. Sleep naked. helps air get to the ulcers and blisters, so they can breathe and heal. I had a small tubular pillow which i kept between my legs when i slept to make sure there was oxygen getting to the area, also it hurt having my legs together, so yeah.

5. Keep soaking in that bath, helps keep it clean cause the gross puss you cant wipe away just falls off usually after a while. I hear epson-salts, or what ever they're called do wonders - i live in student accomdation currently, so i only had a shower and had to make do with sitting in a shallow bucket, with the shower coming down on top of me.

6. Vaseline is your best friend, once the area is clean, it helps keep it clean, and also protects the wounds from being touched, either by clothes or by your... flaps. also i found it made walking easier. OH also, helps to pee, cause its protecting to wounds from getting covered in pee. not 100% but a good 80% success rate.

7. Dont ever listen to these sadistic girls on here suggesting tea tree down there. Dear god. Trying it myself was the dumbest thing Ive ever experiemented with, and didn't help the healing at all, instead made the pain worse - its instead good for the coldsore wounds. painful. but works.

8. Numbing cream. so, I was diagnosed in a sexual health clinic thing, and they refused to prescribe anything to help the pain saying that numbing creams are dangerous in large quantities - Pharmacy wouldnt sell me anything without a prescription. I went to emergency department in the hospital who gave me Lignocaine 2% gel (a gel they often use for surgeries) and basically said go nuts. Oh my god, this gel literally was my salvation and I used it sparingly for the rest of my outbreak until i ran out (mainly before i went to pee, or rare times of if i needed to leave my house) - I now have over the counter "Numit 5% cream" which is "Lidocaine (Lignocaine) 2.5% w/w" - I'm no science major so I'm hoping this works the same when i need it to - I don't remember trying it. ALSO, apply with clean disposable rubbler gloves.

9. To help with the pain from my throat herpes, i literally just used an anti-inflammatory throat spray with anaesthetic properties, which I carried everywhere and used constantly until the sores healed. Worked great.

10. For the coldsores, from the very start, i used those coldsore clear patches, which are basically a sticker to keep it clean and reduce speading. It works well will make up, though if you touch it, the make up on it didnt last long - smiling all but took the thing off, but i would still recommend it. for the second week, i took the sticker off to it coud scab, and now its just a light scar thats fading still (a month later)

11. DO NOT FORGET YOUR MEDICATION - stops the outbreak in its tracks, doesn't heal it, but stops more forming. 

Personally, i wouldnt recommend using sanitary towels for the discharge, cause that added friction is just unneccsary to healing the woulds - I instead just went commando, wearing loose fitting clothes (which for me was a bodycon dress - cause it was comfy and couldnt flash people cause it doesnt move in the wind), and carried spare underwear (when i had to go out in underwear).

To combat the discharge when sleeping naked, i layed down a towel on my bed - seemed to help.

Also wouldn't recommend using antiseptic creams - i tried them, they make the pain SO SO SO SO much worse, probably cause of the alcohol usually in them which dries out wounds. They're probably useful in helping heal the wounds, but oh my god, the pain is intense. Maybe stick to using them on the coldsore.

In terms of peeing, I had a system of [u]many[/u] steps, that helped.

Okay, so the numbing gel works 100% for peeing, but i was using it sparingly, so i didn't use it all that much for peeing (or if i did, tiny tiny amounts, then put vaseline everywhere).

My steps were:

1. Cover area in vaseline, and i literally mean everywhere.

2. Heat up my heatpack ready, to soothe the area after.

3. I used 2 pieces of neatly folded kitchen towel - one dampened completely in warm water, the other in freezing cold water.

4. So i read some girl had success peeing at an angle, so i found my angle, which is a standing/leaning forward kinda squat, leaning enough forward that the pee would fall either straight into the toilet, or would run down flaps that are not covered in wounds.

5. When i could bare touching the area, I would also try to hold open the flaps cause that reduces the pain of the pee touching anything.

6. Straight after peeing, I experienced pain, but far less pain than trying to pee like a regular person, so I would put the warm paper towel over the area to soothe, and clean (dont literally wipe), then the freezing cold one for the same reason - Although the order of cold and warm one changed each time. The cold one helped pain the best straight after peeing.

7. Heatpack straight on!!!!!!!! Literally. Helped get rid of the pain or make it more bareable.

As I said to the other girls, I really wish I came across someone who wrote far more than neccessary to help me deal with this. Which by the way, I didn't, and I had to read many many replies to other threads to try and get an idea of things to do.

More people should overshare, this could make it easier to collate information and put it somewhere easier to access/ read for those of us freaking out.

Oh right, and reading depressing posts of other girls expressing their themselves regarding having been diagnosed 6 months ago, or 3 years ago, or whatever, and how they're struggingly to come to terms, it made me psychologically worse off, and was making me more depressed myself about the situation.

I dunno, personally [u]wouldn't[/u] recommend reading other's experiences, if you recently had your own diagnosis, or if there is an obvious angle that they need/looking for attention/support - really. For you.Its not comforting, and increases your anxiety and depression. Instead [u]read posts about the girls who have come to terms and how they got through it.[/u] Cause the outbreak will evenutally end, we may have new barriers and difficulties to face, but we will get through them, and we have each other on here to find the support we need, as we need it.I read them now a month has been by, and I identify and sympathise without it affecting my own psychological health - i think now that i'm over the experience and come to terms with contracting this, that reading them are pretty important, cause everyone reacts differently, and others are still struggling to come to terms, and for longer periods of times.

I hope this helps you in anyway.