Ok I apologize in advance for how long this is about to be. So when I was about 14 years old, I went swimming in a river and I had what I thought was an infection because I thought the water wasn’t clean. I went to the hospital and they instantly said you have herpes. They never swabbed me and never took a blood test. At that point in my life I’ve only ever had sex with 2 people. Ok so fast forward that summer I went to the obgyn I got a blood test for everything and my hsv1 and hsv2 came back negative so my whole life turned around. Fast forward to 21 I’m in a committed 2 year relationship. I went to the obgyn and I got tested for everything my hsv1 came back positive. Oh lord the nightmare has come back!! How could this have happened??? I have so many questions like aren’t you tested for herpes when you’re pregnant if so I had a child and they never told me I was positive so is it possible I contracted it with a different partner? How do I find out if it’s oral or genital? I’ve never even had a cold sore on my lips before. The only thing that makes me think oral hsv1 is the fact I get “canker sores” probably like every 2 weeks. It’s not from tissue trauma either they just come all the time. The only thing that makes me think genital is the incident from when I was 14. But the blood test was negitive after that incident, wouldn’t I have found out when I gave birth to my daughter? I mean what do I do find out whether it’s oral or genital. Also how do you go about telling a new partner(I’m not longer with my previous partner)
The Herpes Virus is killed instantly once it's come into contact with water. It likely that you could've contacted it by sharing a drink with someone or sharing a kiss. HSV-1 is oral Herpes and HSV-2 is Genital. So you couldn't get the virus by swimming in a lake, the sea or a public bath. You have to come into contact with someone already infected with the virus. When you fall pregnant they ask you about your sexual health to find out if you have any STI's but they will also do bloods so it may be that even your bloods during your pregnancy came back ok.
You may not really get any test done to check if you have the Herpes Virus as doctors can usually tell the signs of what it is, they might only do one if; you're pregnant, if a doctor is uncertain, or if you've had the outbreak and they'd do a test to prove it's 100% the virus and not a different form of STI.
It's also hard to know when you came into contact with the virus as the Herpes virus (like many others) hide so you don't always get signs, symptoms and outbreaks. It can lie dormant in the body for years before you get anything at all and it is rare to pass herpes on to a newborn so even then you'd struggle to work out who you got the virus from. As for telling a new partner you'll just have to inform them before you have sex and wear a condom to stop passing the virus on.
I know you can’t get it from swimming I must of done a bad job explaining I had an “outbreak” but I thought maybe a bad reaction to the water and I’m not pregnant anymore I’ve already had my child. I’m just wondering if I have oral or genital because you can have hsv1 genitally.