This is a guest post from Tanya at Living Right Now. I offered to host because this post deals with some sensitive issues and she didn’t want it on her own site.
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I like to think of myself as ‘normal.’ I’m 5’6, brown hair, green eyes, am 23 years old and have a partner and a toddler. I’m on my second University degree, I’m going to soon be an Art Teacher. I try to be a good person, and I need to point out that I have been with N for nearly four years. I didn’t think this sort of thing would happen to me, ever.
It started when we went to the pool. I was dry and itchy down there. I thought it was thrush but by the end of the day I was chaffing as well. It was sore and I felt dizzy, hot and generally unwell. I thought that maybe I had been sunburned and was just feeling a touch a heatstroke. I went home and sat on the couch uncomfortably.
By the next day I was in pain. It was itchy and sore and there were lumps forming on my lady parts. When I tried to scratch the pain shot through me. The first thing I thought of was a heat rash, but the lumps seemed to indicate something else. I booked into the doctor and surprisingly got an appointment the same day with the lady doctor at the local practice.
I had to wait for an hour in the doctor’s surgery, with itchy lady parts and the urge to stand up, drop my pants and try to scratch it. It was uncomfortable. The lady in front of me had a brand new baby, cooing over her kept me occupied for a few minutes. I then started to watch people coming in and out of the surgery. I witnessed a young lady and what I assumed was her partner appearing at the desk after being seen by a doctor. She was in tears and he was rubbing her back sympathetically but smiling at the same time. She then went next door to have bloods done. I guessed a pregnancy.
I finally was called to the surgery and I explained my symptoms to the doctor. I sighed when she asked me to lay on the bed so she could have a look.
‘Uh huh, yes.’ She said thoughtfully. ‘Herpes simplex.’
I asked her to repeat herself.
‘Herpes. Herpes? Do you know what herpes is?’ She asked.
‘I do. But. I’ve been with the same person for four years. It’s impossible.’
‘The virus can lay dormant for a long time…’ she started, but I wasn’t listening. I was crunching numbers in my head. I had only been with two people, ever. The first one I was his first and he was mine. There is no way I could have picked up herpes.
‘You don’t understand…I cannot have contracted this at all. There’s no way.’ I began. I could see that she wasn’t interested in my excuses, and told me that it was perfectly normal, and okay, and lots of people contract this virus through sexual activities.
I gave up and sat there glumly. She explained the medication to me and gave me a prescription. I left the surgery in a daze.
In the car something occurred to me. He must have cheated on me, I thought. I burst into tears and by the time I walked in the door at home I was sobbing loudly. N and our housemate J were both panicked and N held me tight and asked me what had happened. When I told him he shook his head in disbelief.
‘That’s impossible.’ He said.
‘I know.’ I replied, but I wasn’t believing it for a second.
I grabbed some money and headed to the chemist to humiliate myself again. I was more than embarrassed and I felt dirty somehow. How could I have an STI? Doesn’t that only happen to people who sleep around a lot? Did he cheat? Does he have it? My mind was racing with questions. I picked up the medication and noticed the pharmacy assistant give me a quick glance up and down as she handed me the package. She was tall, blonde and gorgeous, of course. She would never get herpes.
I spent the rest of the day half in tears and couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone. One of my best friends appeared online and I dropped the bomb on her. We hadn’t been on great terms lately but luckily she was fully sympathetic and I was thankful.
The accusations in my head were physically displayed in my disinterest in touching, or even being next to N. For one thing I felt dirty, and I blamed him. In my head I accused him of cheating, or of at least giving me a disease. I researched the condition on the Internet and once you have contracted it, the virus never goes away. I was stuck with this for the rest of my life and it could reappear at any time. This sent me into a depression and I moped around for a few days before N approached me with a theory.
He reminded me that he had had severe coldsores a week before my symptoms appeared. I had kissed him just as they were starting to clear up and knowing that coldsores are a form of herpes, I could have contracted them that way. I dismissed his theory and backed it up by research done on the Internet. (Good old Google!) Coldsores were the herpes simplex virus one, or HSV1. Herpes transmitted sexually were HSV2. Two completely different strains.
I can’t even explain how upset I was. It sounds so stupid but once you’ve been there you would understand. I felt dirty as well as sick and I was in too much pain to wear underpants so I lived in my pyjamas for a week. I was so angry and wished there was a way that I could have prevented this from happening. It was disgusting. I was disgusting. I had a disease which I would pass on to anyone. I was unclean. J shared my view as he had been accused of passing on an STI and understood how dirty and wrong I felt. I wasn’t talking to N often because in the back of my head there were still accusations that wouldn’t leave my thoughts. I didn’t want him to know this because I didn’t want him to know what I had been thinking if somehow my accusations were wrong.
The next few days passed in a blur, the sores were nearly cleared up, but others things were weighing down on top of me. I decided that the best thing to do would be to go back to the doctor and find answers. I was glad that I didn’t have to have a blood test, only a urine test to determine what was really going on down there.
The tests backed up N’s theory, no HSV2 virus. No cheating. No shame.
See, the things is that the HSV1 virus is in 80% of people. The majority of people only know this when they get coldsores. But what a lot of people don’t know is that the coldsores can appear on other areas of your body, even the genital area. I caught the virus off N, and with Uni assignments looming upon me I was stressed which triggered the outbreak. Instead of coldsores on my face, they appeared elsewhere. I could now have coldsores at any time, although it is ‘unlikely’ that they will appear there again, and more likely that they will appear on my face. (Yay me.)
I think this is important for everyone to know, if you get the symptoms I did, don’t just assume the worst. It may not be what you think.
And HS2 is getting more common orally through oral sex.
To the point where we’ll soon all have it.
yay? At least then we can all bitch to each other about the symptoms!
I’m so sorry you went through this – it is an AWFUL and emotional thing to go through. I have a friend that contracted herpes and I think it has been years since she has ever had another outbreak. Ok, I am going to be honest here and say that one time, I had what was determined to be a “shingle” “down there.” (My grandma gets shingles and I must have the same issue). I was freaked out. The first doctor took one look and said I had herpes. I was crushed and experienced all the emotion you just described. I was even on Valtrex. I went months thinking I had herpes. Then, I had to go to a different doctor because I moved. I explained everything to her, and she was like, we’ve had instances like that before, and it was not herpes. They did a blood test on me as well, no herpes. When I got a shingle again, they tested it just to make sure (wowsie that hurt), and it was not herpes. Just a shingle. And those have been the only two shingles I have ever gotten. Weird. I know. Weird.
I caught herpes when I was 16 from my boyfriend. I thought my life was over, I even considered ending it. I hated the unfairness of it. I had been good, been safe, he had told me he’d never had sex before…why was I being punished in this horrific and humiliating way? When I told him, he denied I’d caught it from him. I just told him to get tested, logged offline and we never spoke again. Telling my mother, because I needed her to take me to the clinic, sitting there in the room with my pants off and legs in stirrups while she sat silently behind me, looking cloudy….it was devastating for me. Having my first internal exam with one of those big metal duck-beak-thingies, scared out of my mind with painful blisters and my mom in the room? Just really really terrible.
6 years later and I haven’t had an outbreak since I was 16. I have been with my husband for almost four years and haven’t passed the virus on to him (although I did give him chlamydia and genital warts. Classy, right?). Most of the time, I don’t even remember that I have herpes.
When you’re first diagnosed, there’s so much shame. There’s so much anger. The pain and sickness that comes with it makes it worse too, because you FEEL like death warmed up. But once you’ve got past your outbreak and had one, maybe two more, most of the time you don’t hear from it again.
It gets better. You won’t always be the-person-with-herpes. Things will be normal again.
I had this once, the (very small, about 50-something pakistani) doctor told me it was from oral sex… nice. >_<
Of course the guy I was going out with at the time refused to believe it was his fault… *shudders*
*hugs* sweety, it's a horrid thing to have, I remember the pain all too well. 🙁 xx
Thanks for sharing your story. It is interesting and very much worth sharing. Thanks for being brave. I would like to get a hold of that doctor that saw you. Grrrrr. Anyway take care, Wendy
You are very courageous to share your story. I’m sorry you feel shame for having what is apparently a fairly common disease. I hope in sharing this you help others feel more at ease with their bodies. Be kind to yourself.
STDs. Even if you get tested before sharing a bed with new partner, things like herpes can still lurk under the surface. Chlamydia is another one. It’s so easy to think we can never be touched by this sort of thing, but so many people are and indeed, years later. I’m glad you got more information from your doctor and I hope that you go a very long time without another bout. And try taking Lysine next time when the exams raise your pressure levels. It’s supposed to help.
I haven’t had genital herpes, although I did once have one cold sore on my lip. it was incredibly painful and I thought a spider had crawled onto my face and bitten me in the night. So I can imagine the pain you felt with lots of them down there all at once.
I did get genital warts from my cheating husband who caught them when he was in Malaysia, they can turn into cervical cancer and that’s just what mine were doing the whole time I didn’t know I had them. Because there were no exterior symptoms. They were picked up years later when I finally got around to having a pap smear after skipping them for oh, forever.
So here’s a tipfor anyone reading this: NEVER skip the pap smears, uncomfortable as they may be, they could save your life.
Thankyou everyone for your support. You have no idea how much this means to me.
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