Hi,
I've had quite an experience in the past week. Let me start off by saying please don't just automatically assume I must have herpes before hearing my whole story (as basically everyone has tried to do).
I'm a 22 y/o female. For the past 3 or 4 years, I have suffered pretty painfully from 2 things: horrid mouth ulcers (3 or 4 at a time occurring at least once a month) and boils which are are equally horrid. The boils will at times pop up one after the other or sometimes at the same time. Not all are bad, but some are extremely painful and take forever to "pop" and drain on their own, and they can pop up anywhere. Just recently I had one pop up on my leg and turn purple. It hasn't been like this all my life, just the past few years and both problems have been equally frustrating.
This past weekend was a rough one. I got very little sleep = rundown immune system. Also, at some point early Saturday morning (6 am-ish), I had sex for the first time in quite a while. He used a condom, but the condom broke at some point towards the end of sex. We weren't exactly sure when, but I'm almost positive it was either at the VERY end or close to it, but he pulled out anyway. Anywho, the next day to be safe, I went and got a plan B and that was that. Other than being exhausted from like 2 hours of sleep, I felt relatively okay. This past Tuesday, I woke up with a fever and felt exhausted. I couldn't figure out what was going on but my mom had been feeling bad so I figured I caught whatever she had. I didn't notice anything weird "down there" on Tuesday but I didn't really look either. When I woke up Wednesday morning, it was uncomfortable to wipe after I peed, so I looked with a hand mirror and was horrified. I saw two tiny ulcers on the labia of my vagina and instantly freaked the F out. Herpes flashed across my brain in bright neon letters.
The googling commenced.
Needless to say, I probably cried 47 times Wednesday and almost had a nervous breakdown. I called the health department and set up an appmnt to see a nurse practitioner for Thursday (yesterday).
The minute she saw it, she said "oh yeah, that's herpes." And instantly began telling me how my life was gonna be different. She didn't do a blood test (the health Dpmt where I live does every std test except herpes) or a swab culture test. So all I knew/thought was that I had herpes. No idea what type or anything. She told me if I felt like I needed complete verification, that I could always get a blood test done. Looked into that, and for people with no insurance (like me), it would be $140 . They also said to wait a few weeks for the antibodies to possibly build up. So she prescribed me some acyclovir to take for 10 days (I have no idea if I spelled that right).
So here I am, mouth full of ulcers, boils continuing to pop up all over me, and now vulvar ulcers that sting so bad that it hurts to pee. And I can't help but think, looking back on the guy I recently slept with, that it was be such a far stretch to have contracted herpes from him. And then an even farther stretch to have gotten it from the last guy I slept with: my ex-boyfriend of 3 years that I broke up with 9 months ago. The NP even told me that I probably "already had herpes" since it seemed unlikely that I contracted the virus so fast from the most recent guy.
But....
What the heck are these boils? Why do I keep getting really bad mouth ulcers? Why am I so tired?
The only 2 symptoms of behcet's that I can't relate to are the "joint pain" and "inflammation of the eyes."
I just want to know if it sounds like I could possibly have behcet's? Should I go get tested? At this point, I will accept herpes if that's the unfortunate case, but something deep down is telling me it's not.
Advice is deeply appreciated!