hey girl!  dont stress yourself out.  It is not the end of the world.  Did you know that out breaks overtime become less frequent.  So whenever you have an outbreak or you think an outbreak is coming on dont have sex, but if you keep your immune system strong and you feel no discomfort at all then it is ok to have sex.  Try lysine everytime you feel an outbreak about to happen take lysine.  it is a natural supplement and its cheap.  you can find it at places like wallmart and stuff.  i know that your worried about the viral shedding part.  for the first year i want you to protect yourself with a condom everytime you have sex, because the virus is most contagious the first year but after its going to be ok.....every year that passes by the virus becomes weaker.......So stop getting depressed.  I know its hard... but trust me!  and i want you to do yourself a favor...stop searching information about herpes on the computer because all that your going to get out of it is scare yourself even more......everything will be ok.

I found out I had HSV1 on my gentials in the beginning of Janurary when I was having basically ALL of the nasty painful symptoms that HSV2 has. I got it from my boyfriend also.  And since I was on birth control we never used condoms (we really should use them more often) I got infected. For the first two weeks I was a complete mess. The words "I have herpies" sped through my mind 24/7 like a scratched CD. My boyfriend believes he got it from his previous girlfriend who he isn't on speaking grounds with so maybe we'll never know but after I got the courage to tell my mom (my health care provider) and my doctor I got on acyclovir, I only take it during an outbreak so I haven't actually tried it yet but I had something similar (if not the same exact thing) from when I had my first out break in Janurary. I don't believe in a God or higher power but even today I question myself as if me having "caught" this horrible disease is some sort of punishment? (since I was my boyfriends "other woman" before he dumped his exgirlfriend) It's been almost 2 months since I've had this and sometimes I just cry about it. The emotional reactions to knowing that you have this horrible disease is far worse than actually having it I think because a lesion will come and go (along with all the HORRIBLE and painful other sympotoms...) but just KNOWING that you have the disease doesn't leave your mind. Fortuantely my boyfriend doesn't have practically any issues with the disease (other than lesions which he used to think were "just pimples on his penis" YEAH RIGHT!). Me on the other hand... I am TERRIFIED of having another outbreak because my first was so horrible. I really hope you don't have it has hard as I do and I hope that you get on medicine right away because it will shorten the span of your outbreaks. I hope that you always use protection and get blood tests before being with a new partner because all my previous partners were COMPLETE virgins (oral sex and vaginal sex) but my boyfriend's exgirlfriend most likely had other partners (we aren't fully sure because they don't speak and she lies about EVERYTHING). I hope you talk about it with a counselor, trusted friend/family member, your boyfriend, anyone that you can trust. It helps to talk about it. I regularly find myself (like right now) researching more about my disease and trying to better know what I have to better help myself deal with it. I have only told my doctors, mother, friend who had an STD but got treated for it, and my favorite sister. I have best friends that I want to talk to about my disease with but I feel I can't because I don't know if I can truely trust them with something so crazy as Herpes. I'm afraid of the social stigma if I tell anyone. I hope you find someone to talk to.