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the blood test result is pretty accurate.... if it shows 3.6 and above then it is almost confirm you have it.. anything below that there is a small chance that it is be false positive... however the higher the number, the more likely u are to have it... anyway once u have the virus.. it is for life.. so you can do the antibodies test anytime again and get a second result to confirm
bad sore throat can be cause by many reasons.. it doesnt mean u have HSV... cold, viral and bacterial infections are just some reasons people get sore throat..
blood test is more accurate... i am not sure how the singapore system work... but over here swab test is usually only done when there is symptoms like cold sore..
Quote:
Originally Posted by pting
If I have HSV-2 blood test > 3.5, how reliable is the test? I never have a ulcer or blister on dick. Can HSV-1 or chicken pox antibodies give rise to positive HSV-2 blood test? I recall do have bad sore throat with fever, everytime recover faster than the previous, symptons look more like HSV-1 according to what I read.
Does swab test more reliable than blood test? If so, why doctor encourage blood test for HSV despite no sympton.
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If I have HSV-2 blood test > 3.5, how reliable is the test? I never have a ulcer or blister on dick. Can HSV-1 or chicken pox antibodies give rise to positive HSV-2 blood test? I recall do have bad sore throat with fever, everytime recover faster than the previous, symptons look more like HSV-1 according to what I read.
Does swab test more reliable than blood test? If so, why doctor encourage blood test for HSV despite no sympton.
The majority of those infected with HSV NEVER have any symptoms so it is not at all surprising that you have never had any herpes lesions.
A swab test is more reliable than a blood test but if you don't have any lesions there is nothing to swab so a blood test is the only option.
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I know this is old thread but somehow I can't stop worrying over my herpes test. Currently waiting for the results and getting lots of anxiety attacks and guilt while waiting. It's driving me crazy and I don't know if I can handle the outcome of the test.
Anybody who have got it and how did you manage it?
I know this is old thread but somehow I can't stop worrying over my herpes test. Currently waiting for the results and getting lots of anxiety attacks and guilt while waiting. It's driving me crazy and I don't know if I can handle the outcome of the test.
Anybody who have got it and how did you manage it?
Since the majority of those who are infected never display any symptoms I don't see why you should be so worried.
Just put it to the back of your mind.
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I know. I tried. I even thought since I never display any symptoms why did I even wana go for the test. Now I'm stressing myself up the feeling is terrible.
I know. I tried. I even thought since I never display any symptoms why did I even wana go for the test. Now I'm stressing myself up the feeling is terrible.
Testing when there are no symptoms can just add to the stress because false positives are quite common. Then there is also the difficulty of interpreting the test should the result fall in the grey area.
My honest advice is to go for counseling. The psychological problems you are going through sound far more serious than any infections you might have.
Anxiety causes hypertension, heart attacks and strokes. BP can shoot up to to 180/120 from anxiety attacks and this falls into the "medical emergency" category.
Herpes on the other hand is just a minor inconvenience in comparison.
OK let's talk about HSV testing. You PMed me a question but I thought it would be better to answer it here and share the info with everyone.
There are 2 groups of patients who carry HSV.
Group 1 - symptomatic patients
To make the diagnosis in these patients is really straightforward. It could be purely clinical i.e. you look at the blisters/ulcers and immediately you know it is HSV because it looks exactly like what is shown in textbooks. If you are still not sure or you want to know which type it is, you swab the base of the ulcer/blister and send it to the lab for a HSV PCR test. This has largely replaced viral culture tests we used to do which were highly non-sensitive.
Group 2 - asymptomatic patients
First of all you have to ask yourself and your patient the question "why the hell are you testing in the first place?". Let sleeping dogs lie and let the patient live his life in blissful ignorance.
But you absolutely have to know if you are infected or not if not you will go mad. That's fine.
You then have to rely on serologic tests. In other words, you have to test for HSV antibodies and not HSV virus. The problem with serologic tests is that they are extremely difficult to interpret. There is a lot of cross reaction. For example, most people carry HSV 1 and this may cause the HSV 2 results to become false positive. Even getting a chickenpox vaccine may cause the HSV serologic tests to become false positive.
So you want serologic tests that are as specific as possible. The Gold Standard is the Western Blot test. As far as I know, there is only 1 lab in the world that does this and they only do it for research purposes.
A good alternative is Type Specific Serologic Testing. I have personally called the labs in Singapore that I use for HSV serologic testing and they have told me that the tests that they do are TSST tests. I have my doubts but let's just take that at face value.
The labs use a cut off index value of anywhere from 0.80 to 1.1 to say a test is "positive" for HSV infection. I call bullshit on this. From the studies I have read, it should be > 3.50. So if you HSV IgG index reads > 3.50 you can more or less (99%) say that you have been infected with HSV.
The problem is when your reading comes back as 2.0 or 2.5 or 1.8 and you do not have any symptoms. Are you infected or not? Nobody knows. You can re-test in a few months to look for a SIGNIFICANT INCREASE in titer but most of the time, this does not help either. SIGNIFICANT INCREASE means it must rise above 3.50. If you go from 2.0 to 2.8, you are still none the wiser.
The other problem is the window period. This is the time from infection to when TESTS CAN PICK UP THE INFECTION. This is very different from saying WHEN THE BODY STARTS PRODUCING ANTIBODIES. The body starts to produce IgM antibodies (more on this later) as early as 3 weeks from infection. And IgG antibodies no later than 6 weeks form infection. Very frequently, IgG can be produced much earlier. So the doctor who informed you that the HSV IgG test at 28 days is "90% to 95%" accurate is absolutely correct. From the studies I have read, HSV IgG tests are accurate no later than 16 weeks from infection.
IgM is produced much earlier so some doctors use this test to detect an infection earlier. The problem with IgM is that is disappears very fast also. So it has very limited utility in diagnosis. Furthermore, IgM cannot differentiate between HSV 1 and 2.
Last thing: even if your HSV test came back positive, you don't know when you caught it anyway! Maybe your parents had cold sores and passed HSV 1 to you as a child. So now you test positive for HSV 1 and going to freak out when you have been living with it happily all your life? Maybe you caught HSV 2 from your 1st GF, been symptom free all this while and now you are going to freak out?
After knowing all this you still want to test?
Listen to good advice from everyone here. You have no symptoms. Leave it.
Live your life. Be happy.
__________________ Tips for ALL samsters.
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Some anecdotal sharing. It has been almost 2 decades since my first paid FJ (that was not with a prostitute but some girl who needed money). Lots of other, but safe, fun since then. Never done raw. I think 1 BBBJ. Mostly HJs.
Sexual encounters with gfs and wife excluded.
Last week I just did blood test. Negative for both HSV 1 and 2
19-03-2018, 07:56 AM
