Emotional Impact of Genital Herpes

2009-01-27T13:28:00.002-08:00

The Emotional Impact

For many people, the social and emotional distress of having herpes is far worse than the physical symptoms of the disease, especially upon first discovering they have been infected.

Adams knows this well. After some marital difficulties and a separation, Adams and her husband reunited. But their tenuous relationship was further strained when he brought genital herpes back to the marriage. "It hurt our chances of getting back together," says Adams. The relationship ended in divorce.

The doctor who diagnosed Adams wasn’t very understanding, she says. "I really felt betrayed on all counts." Adams found understanding and information from the herpes support group that she now helps facilitate. "It always hurts to see someone feel so worthless and angry at the world," she says. "We see people who say ‘I haven’t told anyone. I haven’t dated in five years.’ This virus has taken over their whole life. We let them see that we’re OK. We all lead normal, happy lives."

Adams, who used to have painful outbreaks every month, now has them rarely. She keeps an antiviral drug in her medicine chest just in case, but hardly ever has to use it. "I’m a firm believer that attitude is all-important. If you’re upset about it and you think about it all the time, you’re going to have outbreaks. Once you realize this isn’t going to kill you, at that point you feel stronger and your whole immune system gets stronger."

"The hardest thing about having genital herpes is having to tell someone," says Adams. Like many people with herpes, Adams believes it’s important to tell a new partner about the disease before having sexual relations.

"People should have a right to make an informed decision," says STD clinic owner Warren. "The consequences of not telling are not only possibly infecting a person with a disease that they don’t want, but the question of trust comes up. What else haven’t you told them about yourself? Our experience indicates that far more people accept sexual partners with herpes than reject them."

The first time Phinney told someone, it didn’t go well. He hadn’t had the virus long and he was very distraught. "I transferred some of my anxiety about herpes to that person," he says. After learning more about herpes and accepting his condition, Phinney was more at ease with telling. "I don’t think the words or the setting are very important. I think the single most important thing was being well-educated and comfortable with my own condition."

When Phinney told Karen, now his wife, he still faced several fears–"The fear of infecting someone else and also facing the possibility that someone I was interested in and wanted to be in a long-term monogamous relationship with would reject me."

But Karen was very accepting and willing to put things in perspective, says Phinney. "She came with me to support group meetings. She told us [the group] that she had decided that I was the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with and although she didn’t want to get herpes … it wasn’t something that was an insurmountable block to establishing a relationship."

Phinney was on suppressive antiviral therapy when he met Karen and he continues to stay on it. He has not had an outbreak in over a year. In the couple’s six years together, there is no evidence that Karen has been infected. "We’re operating on the presumption that by keeping my outbreaks in check, we’re reducing the probability of my infecting her."

Phinney’s presumption is the subject of ongoing studies. Researchers have found that daily doses of antiviral herpes drugs reduce asymptomatic shedding, but whether this suppressive therapy can help prevent transmission is not yet known.

Another area of long-time study is a herpes vaccine. No vaccine has been shown to be effective in human studies, but researchers continue to work toward that end.

In the meantime, learning about the disease and talking openly with a partner can help people with herpes take control of their lives. "Once they understand it and recognize it, control is a lot easier," says Ashley. "Over time, it becomes a nuisance rather than a mind-altering and life-changing event." For natural Homeopathic Relief to attack Herpes Symptoms click here
There's no reason you should be embarrassed about herpes or genital warts anymore. If you have external warts (not internal warts), get the information you need for genital herpes at genital herpes

Treatment of Genital Herpes

2009-01-27T13:28:00.001-08:00

Treatment

Although there is no cure for genital herpes, there are medications that significantly reduce the frequency and duration of outbreaks and have few side effects in most people.

In 1985, the FDA approved Zovirax (acyclovir), the first genital herpes drug, which is now available in a generic form. More recently, the FDA approved two other drugs to treat genital herpes: Famvir (famciclovir) and Valtrex (valacyclovir).

All three of these oral antiviral drugs can be taken either episodically–when a person has an outbreak or feels one coming on, or suppressively–daily to help prevent the recurrence of outbreaks. Acyclovir and valacyclovir are also FDA-approved to treat an initial episode of genital herpes to help heal the lesions and to lessen the pain.

When taken episodically at the first sign of a tingling or itching sensation, an antiviral drug may prevent an outbreak altogether. "Once an outbreak occurs, if the treatment is started soon enough, the drugs can lessen the severity and shorten the healing time," says the FDA’s Kukich. When taken suppressively, the drugs don’t always prevent outbreaks, but help them to occur less frequently.

All three of the drugs work by interfering with DNA synthesis to prevent the virus from reproducing, says Kukich. Famciclovir and valacyclovir, which are better absorbed by the body, can be taken less often than acyclovir. For natural Homeopathic Relief to attack Herpes Symptoms click here
Diagnosing Genital Herpes

Herpes can be detected by a viral culture of a lesion, if one is present, or a blood test. Ashley recommends both methods.

With a viral culture, a doctor swabs a lesion to pick up cells, puts the swab in a special solution, and sends it to a lab for growing and analyzing.

Although a doctor may recognize a herpes lesion by examining it, a viral culture will confirm the presence and type of HSV, says Ashley. Once they know whether they have HSV-1 or HSV-2, people have a better idea of how often they will have recurrences.

But viral cultures do have their drawbacks. If the lesion has started to heal (usually 48 hours after its appearance), the swab may not pick up enough virus and the culture result will be a "false negative." (False positives in cultures are rare.)

A blood (serology) test can be used to confirm a negative culture. It can also be used to diagnose herpes in a person who has no symptoms, who has genital irritation but isn’t sure it’s herpes, or who has a sexual partner with herpes and wants to find out if he or she has already become infected.

"Diagnosing whether someone has herpes or not is quickly done by a serology test because once you’ve become infected, an immune-competent [healthy] individual will develop antibodies to the herpes that is infecting them," says Thomas Simms, a biologist in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

Herpes antibodies will usually show up in the blood several weeks after a person first becomes infected. Some blood tests can determine the type of herpes infection, but cannot indicate whether the herpes is oral or genital. So people without symptoms may not know for certain if their herpes is oral or genital.

There are currently two FDA-cleared blood tests that accurately determine if a person is infected with HSV-1 or HSV-2, the HerpeSelect ELISA Kits and the HerpeSelect Immunoblot Kit made by Focus Technologies of Herndon, Va.

Another blood test is the Western Blot. Although not 100 percent accurate, the Western Blot is considered the "gold standard" of blood tests and is used to determine the accuracy of other herpes blood tests that are developed. The University of Washington is the premier institution for performing and interpreting the test.

Many older FDA-cleared blood tests for herpes are still on the market, and many labs use these tests because they are widely available and inexpensive. Although they may be labeled type-specific (can determine whether the infection is HSV-1 or HSV-2), they are not reliable, says Simms.

But it’s difficult for people to make sure they are getting one of the newer, accurate tests, says Wald. Doctors and even lab workers may not know what test they’re using. "The patient needs to ask, but it’s a very tall order. It will take a significant amount of work on their part and phone calls to the lab themselves."

This is where a herpes support group can help, says Adams, who facilitates a group called HELP of Washington. "We keep a list of doctors who are up to speed, knowledgeable, and know what the right tests are." For natural Homeopathic Relief to attack Herpes Symptoms click here
There's no reason you should be embarrassed about herpes or genital warts anymore. If you have external warts (not internal warts), get the information you need for genital herpes at Treatment of Genital Herpes

Genital HPV and Men

Emotional Impact of Genital Herpes

Treatment of Genital Herpes