Did my husband give me herpes?

Hi Shelly-Anne,

Thanks for asking your question.  Thought I'm not a doctor, I do have herpes and think I can help.

Herpes is such a sneaky disease, really anything is possible.  It could be that you contracted herpes several years ago, but that the virus lay dormant that whole time and the blood tests were always false negatives.  It's also possible that you don't have herpes and that this last test was a false positive.  (I wrote a SharePost about the different herpes tests and their reliability, you can check it out here.  You may want to get tested again to be sure.)  There is the chance that your husband has been carrying the disease this whole time but that it took a long time for it to spread to you.  It's hard to know.

Has your husband been tested?  That would at least give you some indication.  Either way, if you are in a committed relationship and have never had outbreaks, there is not much to do or worry about.  You might not actually have the virus.  If you do, you may never know where it came from.  But that's not too important anyway.  The important thing is keeping yourself and your partner healthy going forward.  

In addition to my SharePost about herpes tests, I recommend you also take a look at the Causes and Risk Factors page as well as the Transmission page for more information about how herpes can be spread.

PJ