Hello,
I came across this site by googling "herpes support group". I recently had a one night stand with someone I was just getting to know. Long story short I got a horrible yeast infection afterwards that caused me so much pain I was certain I had caught something. I have just gotten out of a year and a half relationship with a wonderful man who I still love very much. I suppose sleeping with "steve the one night stand" was my idiotic way of attempting to forget the man i love. I've been the gynocologist ...i can't even count how many times in the past month. I also realized that everytime I went in for the usual rounds of std testing that I never got a herpes blood test. I never knew that I had to specifically ask for it, assuming that when I went in and asked them to test for EVERYTHING they would indeed test for everything. I was wrong. Currently I'm waiting to hear my blood results for herpes and I'm going to visit the gyno again in April to get another round of testing...and this time I'm coming in with a list of everything I want to be tested for...I'm unemployed right now...but money is not an issue for me...my piece of mind is, I will gladly pay for a piece of mind...I'll just have to budget like crazy hehe.
I can't lie and say that I'm not scared...I'm terrified and I'm trying to keep as calm and as optimistic as possible. I read your other posts as well and it's true...women ARE way more suceptible to stds and hpv and it's quite unfair how people with life long stds or viral infections become stigmatized. The reality is, almost everyone has some sort of sexually transmitted disease unless they've NEVER had sex. My resolutions are exactly yours...my hope of course is that Friday I will find out I am negative and the tests the follow on April will be negative. I have been a wreck, blaming myself for putting myself in such stupid situations...constantly crying...feeling low...and all of this BEFORE even scheduling appointments (the horrible pain I was in definitely made things look more grim).
I think what hit me so hard was that I found solice in going and getting my std screenings/paps thinking that Planned Parenthood was checking for all possible infections...when I came to find out that they had a list of stds they DID NOT check for...I fell into a pit of sadness. Mostly afraid that I somehow unknowingly infected someone with something I had no idea I even had.
Hopefully Friday will be a day that I can breathe a small sigh of relief. I am slowly calming down and allowing room for the possibility of a positive result, and allowing my head to see things as optimistically as possible...no matter what I am me, right? We are not defined by our ailments or diseases...we are defined with how we handle obstacles and how we live our lives. Thank you for your post...it definitely allowed me to calm down and look at things with a glass half full perspective...I will be okay no matter what the result. :) You are a wonderful person, keep on keeping on and I wish you the best with your resolutions!
Hi Cindy,
Thank you so much for your feedback. I assume you've received your test results by now, how are they?
It sounds like you've been through a lot of emotional distress, but that you continue to maintain an optimistic outlook. Yes, it's scary that the doctor's don't actually test you for everything even when you ask for it. But if you unintentionally infected someone else, it's not your fault and you can't blame it all on yourself. I can assure you that if you do have herpes, your life is not over.
If the results were positive, I recommend you check out the Coping with Genital Herpes and Dating and Relationships pages. If the results were negative, you may want to read the Prevention and Transmission pages to know more about how to protect yourself (or others) in the future.
Let us know the update!
PJ
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Penelope James:
Thank you for posting such awesome resolutions! One that I had never thought about was abstaining from sexual contact until my partner gets tested. I have only been thinking about my status and prevention for him, but I am just as valuable and need to know what I would be getting myself into, just like him. That makes such wonderful sense.
I was wondering why you are resolving to only drink alcohol or caffeine 3x per week? I have a friend of a friend who is HSV2+ who said that her diet was the biggest influence on her outbreaks, and she said that once she cut out caffeine and alcohol her outbreaks became almost non-existent....I have about 2-3 outbreaks a month. And I consume alcohol and caffeine, until recently I only allow myself caffeine on Mondays.
So does it have to do with HSV2 or just health in general? Or some other reason?
A few of my own resolutions:
-I resolve to limit my alcohol consumption to two drinks per occasion, and maximum of one occasion per week.
-I resolve to judge people less, and be more forgiving.
-I resolve to abstain from ANY sexual contact until I know their status, and they know mine.
-I resolve to quit cussing so much!
-I am going to give my life to God and the Christian faith and be baptized.
Hi,
Thanks for your response. To answer your question, yes, my resolution to cut down on drinking alcohol and caffeine has to do with my herpes outbreaks. Since I'm currently on suppressive therapy, I don't really have any outbreaks. But I do know that caffeine certainly can trigger outbreaks and therefore should be cut out of my diet. I wish I could cut it out completely, but I'm trying to do it in small steps. Alcohol is also really hard for me to cut out since it's around me all the time. Because I know I can't stop these habits cold turkey, I'm hoping to gradually decrease them until one day they are gone.
Your resolutions are great! And yes, I almost forgot to include having my partner be tested as well. There is so much pressure on us to always be honest and to tell partners about our STDs or else we are horrible people, that sometimes we forget that we are still at risk of getting other diseases. I recently realized that even when a guy says he is "clean" he could still have HPV since there is no way to test for that in men. And therefore, it is a little unfair that I am seen as "dirty" when others simply don't truly know their health status. I just posted a SharePost about this that I hope you will read called "Why Sex is Riskier for Women".
Have a great 2009!
Thanks again