I got tested once and the doctor told me testing for herpes is pointless because most everyone has the antibodies in their body due to how common it is. The test gives false positives most of the time.
Comment on Anon contracts herpes
Turret3857@infosec.pub 3 days agoHuh, either I dont know I have it or I got lucky. Thats crazy. I imagine an STD test would pick up HSV-2 but I wonder if it also picks up the oral variant. Ive never actually noticed any symptoms on myself. This is actually crazy though I didnt know this, I feel like more people should. TIL lol
Pacattack57@lemmy.world 3 days ago
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 3 days ago
No one treats for HSV1 ever unless you have a bad active outbreak.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK47447/
Worldwide, ∼90% of people have one or both viruses. HSV-1 is the more prevalent virus, with 65% of persons in the United States having antibodies to HSV-1 (Xu et al., 2002). The epidemiology in Europe is similar, with at least half of the population seropositive for HSV-1. In the developing world, HSV-1 is almost universal, and usually acquired from intimate contact with family in early childhood
2/3 of the population UNDER 50 have some form of HSV, but virtually every person autopsied that died over the age of 60 will have HSV-1. It’s THAT common. That’s why they don’t test.
vfsh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
In my experience most standard STD panels will test for HSV-2 but not 1, usually you’d have to special request it
spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
And even when you ask about it, your doc will probably say that the test isn’t worth doing because of how common HSV is and how inaccurate the test is.
- source - one of my partners just requested a full STI panel and the doc told her that
pupbiru@aussie.zone 2 days ago
a full STI screen is for HIV, chlamydia, and gonorrhoea
blood test - for syphilis, HIV throat swab - for chlamydia and gonorrhoea anal swab - for chlamydia and gonorrhoea urine - for chlamydia and gonorrhoea
afaik they sometimes tack on general biochemistry (sodium, potassium, etc) to the blood test, as well as some other things like mycoplasma genitalium but these are not standard 3-monthly tests
afaik it’s very rare to test for HSV at all, for various reasons
Opisek@lemmy.world 3 days ago
You can totally also be asymptomatic for your whole life and not know it. It is also useful to know that “oral herpes” doesn’t exclusively affect your mouth, and “genital herpes” doesn’t exclusively affect your genitals. Just more often. Both types can appear in both locations. The hypothetical person from the greentext would likely have contracted oral herpes.