Helped Over 500,000 patients with 98%+ satisfaction.

Connect & Get Personalized 1-to-1 Answers from Expert Doctors

DoctorSpring > Question Home

A complicated question about herpes and its transmission

Resolved Question:

Dear doctor, I am a 24 years old male. I am staying with my girlfriend for about a year. I have had genital herpes previously, about a year ago and had its outbreaks then itself. Recently, my partner also got infected from me. She is now having her genital herpes outbreaks. Now, my issue is with the spread of this virus. My doubt is that is there any chance to spread the infection to un-affected areas by ourselves during any phase of infection, like virus shedding or so. I am not referring to an active outbreak but just shedding of the virus. I searched for this all over internet but couldn’t find an answer. Please help me with this. Thanks a million.

Category: Community

Ask Your Own Question

Category: Internal Medicine Specialist
 21 Doctors Online

It is really unfortunate to know that both of you got infected with genital herpes. Anyway, it is more unfortunate that you can spread the infection to unaffected parts of body also, while virus shedding. This can happen through oral sex in which genital herpes can infect mouth and facial parts and vice versa. That means, both of the types of herpes virus, I mean Herpes Simplex virus type 1,which cause cold sores or oral herpes (herpes labialis) and herpes simplex virus type 2, which cause genital herpes, can co exist in a body. This can even infect parts which are not naturally associated with herpes. However, your body will try hard to get rid of the virus by producing antibodies against the virus. This results in a prevention of spreading of this virus to other parts of body. But a total elimination of possibility is not practical. That means still there are chances of infection through viral shedding. However, it is seen that frequent sexual exposure to virus infected people will increase chances and severity of outbreak. So, it is better to reduce sexual activity till both of you get better in terms of genital herpes. To avoid more frequent outbreaks, you can take antiviral medication, as prescribed by your doctor. Medicines like acyclovir, Valtrex etc. help in suppressing the infection and prevent catching of them again. But it is not possible to avoid an outbreak forever and to eradicate the virus. This is similar to the recurring outbreaks of chicken pox after the first occurrence. Repeating occurrences will not be as severe as the first outbreak or not even felt as an outbreak itself. In the case of genital herpes, it is usually seen infected in genital areas only. The antibodies prepared in our body prevent an outbreak to happen again. If the virus infects some other places, it will be called by some different name. If herpes infects in oral parts, it will be called cold sores or medically, herpes labialis. If it infects finger, it is called Whitlow. Anyway, once infected, antibodies protect you from another outbreak in any other area. But in some people who have very feeble body defence mechanism, this theory fails. Recurrence or infecting other parts are triggered by some factors. Stress it one of the main factors which cause recurrence or change in location of infection. But youngsters do not give much attention to recurrences as it will be mild and even go unnoticed. Shedding of virus becomes prominent in the first year itself and mostly associated with the first outbreak itself. But the quantity of shedding will be insufficient to infect other parts of body if you keep good hygiene. To answer the most disheartening part, there are no home remedies for genital herpes found yet to give a complete cure. Hope you can understand. Take care.


Dr. Steve Merris
Category: Internal Medicine Specialist
Experience: 
Medical School - New York University
Internship in Internal Medicine - Beth Israel Medical Center
Residency in Internal Medicine - Beth Israel Medical Center
Fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine - Columbia University Medical Center
Dr. Steve Merris and 4 other Medical Specialists are ready to help you

Users who read this, also read:

Make informed and better medical decisions.

Join the 500,000 people who found a smarter, quicker way to get Answers, Recommendations & Expert Opinions.

Expert Doctors at fingertips

Recommendation on next step. Second-opinion.Multi-specialty.

Save Time

Average time for answers: 6 hours.

Save Money

$35 for typical specialist consult vs. $120 for a local appointment.

Free Follow-ups

Clarify, ask further questions for free in private conversation.

100% Satisfaction

Money back guarantee for the 1st reply. MEDNET Quality Board.

Start My Consultation

CHAT NOW

About DoctorSpring.com

Doctor Spring is a novel online Doctor consultation platform where you can get your medical questions answered by leading Doctors. Just Submit your question and rest assured that you will consult a Doctor easily. Once you submit the question, the Doctor from the concerned specialty will reply within hours. You can always ask more questions or add details with follow-up question options and make it an online doctor chat. You may use this service to consult a specialty or for getting medical second opinion. All paid services come with a MEDNET quality assurance and 100% money back guarantee.

DoctorSpring in news