Hi, I went to the doctor yesterday as I developed blisters on my thigh last sat so nearly a week ago. Initially I thought I had been bitten by something so I ignored it for the first few days. I decided to go to the doctor yesterday and when he examined it he said it looked like Herpes.
My concern is all the websites I have googled re herpes say that herpes on the upper thigh is genital herpes. The breakout I have is located at the top of my thigh at the front (not inner). I have never been diagnosed with genital herpes nor have I had an attack like this before. I do get the odd cold sore in my lip, maybe once every year or two, but I've never had sores anywhere else on my body. I have been married for 15 years and have never gone off side, neither has my husband.
How can this suddenly appear and is it HSV II or I?
Any help greatly appreciated.
Did the doctor swab test the blisters for herpes? I hope he did. Genital herpes can appear anywhere in the boxer shorts region, so upper thighs included. It is possible to have had it for years without recognizable symptoms. If your doctor did not take a swab and the blisters have healed or begun to heal, then do the IgG antibody test for herpes. If you've had it for a while, you will be positive, but take note that this is an indirect method, and even if positive, it does not indicate where you are infected (exception being Type 2, which is nearly always genital, so a positive is assumed to be genital).
Thanks for your reply.
No the doc didn't take a swab. He said to me it was type 1.
Visual diagnoses of herpes have a high enough error rate that I wouldn't be satisfied with that alone. He should have swab tested you to confirm his visual diagnosis and to determine the type. Both look exactly the same, and the fact that you already have Type 1 orally should mean that you're immune to Type 1 elsewhere, unless you contracted it on your genitals/thigh at the same time as your mouth.