It all started when i went to get checked for my annual physical. To start off, i have only given oral sex and never received oral sex. I had never even had genital to genital contact with anyone. My doctor asked me if i wanted a full STD screening and I agreed. I already knew I did not have anything but a little confirmatory test wouldn’t hurt. They took my blood and sent it off to the lab. Everything came back normal except for one test, my herpes test. I came back positive for both HSV1 and HSV2. I already had an idea that I was HSV1 positive because when I was around 6 years old, I would get fever cold sores. However, this was the first and last time I had ever gotten a cold sore. I was not necessarily shocked about this diagnosis as I had had symptoms before but what truly shocked me was that I was HSV2 positive. For my HSV1 the antibody result came to a 44.00 and for HSV2 the result was 1.24 . This is 1.24 is just borderline of a positive and equivocal result. However, I was still shocked. I had never had any symptoms of any STD, BV, and I also had never had a yeast infection. I had never even been itchy in my genital area ever before, so learning that I had HSV2 really took a toll on my mental health
I went through a period of major depression. I was so digusted with myself that I did not take a shower for a week. Every time I would cry after my diagnosis, I would get very itchy all of a sudden. What I thought was my HSV2 symptoms turned out to be something very different. I was very angry with not only myself but with my parents. My parents are very conservative and never had conversations about sex. My mother is a physician and it hurt that she could not understand the importance of having the sex talk with her children I was not even aware that one could contract herpes through oral sex. I did not even know what BV, trich, and all those STDs were. I also attended a catholic school that advocated for no contraception’s so that did not make anything any better. I strongly believed that if my I had one great friend who was very supportive of me along my journey and after everything was all said and done, I vowed not to have sex until I found someone to accept me for who I am. But I believed I would never find love. I have never had a boyfriend or any significant other, so with the diagnosis, I believed I would be incapable of being loved. I lost about 10 pounds and cried everyday for a month. After, I was slowly getting out of my depression, I began researching about HSV2 and how to keep others safe and learned the importance of disclosure. A few weeks after my diagnosis, I started to get papercut like fissures, itching, and VERY watery discharge. I went to gynecologist and got diagnosed with a yeast infection. This made me skeptical because the reoccurring itching i felt when I cried turned out to be a yeast infection when I had believed it was the HSV2 symptoms.
After a few months of learning how to love myself with this new diagnosis, i had learned about the Western Blot Test administered by the University of Washington. I read their case study about all the false positive tests that had occurred. They mentioned that individuals who scored a 1.3 or less had a 90% chance of a false positive. I had scored 1.24 so this gave me a lot of hope. I finally decided to get the test. The test itself was around $230 but I had to pay for someone the draw my blood and overnight shipping from Washington Dc to Seattle. I ended up spending around $450 but to me there was not a price you put on my peace. I believed this test would put me at peace as it would give me the real results. I ship my specimen and waited about 2 weeks. I got my result and came back negative for HSV2 and positive for HSV1 (which I had already knew). I had read somewhere that having a high HSV1 count can counteract with HSV2 and make it show up as positive which I believe was my case scenario.
Ever since my false positive result, I don’t plan on changing my viewpoint. I still plan to wait until marriage to have sex. I believe this will be better for me by weeding out the individuals who don’t really love me for me. I know have a new understanding and knowledge about STDs which I believe I would not have gained without this false positive result. I believe it is very important for those to understand the prevalence of false positive herpes tests and how common they can misdiagnose you. If I had tested positive for HSV2, I would still be as happy as I am today. This community really helped me get through some dark times in my life and honestly made me realize herpes is not a big deal as long as you take the right repercussions.