I recently visited a strip club twice these past several days while on vacation with friends.  During the two visits I received a lap dance from the same dancer.  During the dances, on both separate nights we french kissed several times (maybe 10 times - some more vigorous than others).  She did not have any visible blisters on her lips or the appearance of bad oral hygiene.  Unfortunately, I had a-lot of alcohol so my judgement was bad and I was not thinking clearly either time.  I have been married 15+ years and never go outside of my marriage for sexual activity.  I'm disappointed in myself, and even more so now worried that I have put myself at risk for a STD of some sort.  I also licked/sucked/kissed her pierced nipples.  

Deep french kissing and sucking nipples would be the extent of what happened - what do you recommend that I do in regard to testing or watching for symptoms of any STD - herpes, etc? 

It's been 3 days since my first encounter with her and last night was the most recent.  I'm a little achy, having some nasal drainage, a little bit of a scratchy throat today, but that's hopefully from staying up too late and drinking too much, but I still worry that I've exposed myself to something.  I really appreciate your recommendations on this.

Kissing is exceedingly low risk for all STIs. Kissing has never been scientifically documented to transmit HIV and although there is little research on other infections, such cases are absent -- or very nearly so -- for all STDs. There have been controversial reports from a few investigators in Australia that gonorrhea may be transmitted more often by kissing than previously believed, but even this appears to be entirely limited to men who have sex with other men (MSM), in whom kissing may be especially prolonged and intensively vigorous. Herpes is a somewhat special situation:  sexual kissing certainly can transmit oral herpes due to HSV1, but oral herpes due to HSV1 isn't considered an STD. And here too the risk is very low anyway. (In addition, if you have ever had oral herpes yourself -- i.e. cold sores, fever blisters, etc) you are immune to a new oral herpes infection.)

Kissing other body areas, including nipples, is no risk at all. No STDs are carried on the skin or involve the breasts or nipples.

No STD causes sniffles or scratchy throat. Of course kissing is an excellent way to transmit common cold viruses, and the timing is consistent with the possibility you caught it from one of your stripper contacts -- but it also could be from anyone else in your environment at about that time.

All in all, I do not advise testing of any kind. And if you have a regular sex partner, that you not delay or otherwise change your usual sexual activities with that person.

I hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

In the off chance you acquired oral HSV1, typically symptoms start within a few days, usually with multiple painful oral sores, severe sore throat, and sometimes fever. With none of these within a week, you can be confident you didn't catch HSV1. And my point about not calling it an STD is that most oral herpes doesn't come from sex at all; indeed, if you ever develop oral herpes (e.g. no symptoms now but a mild recurrent outbreak someday) there will be assumption that this is when and where you were infected. For those reasons, the social/stigma issues that go along with genital herpes usually are not a factor.

Thanks again!

I am the nervous and anxious type  - would any kind of blood test at some point make sense to completely rule HSV1 out or do you simply think to giving it the allotted timeframe of a week would suffice in determining if I got it or not? You had originally said not to test, but I think we were just covering STD's in general and not focusing on oral herpes at that point in the conversation.

Lastly, with the exposure being from kissing, my only concern has been oral herpes - kissing on the mouth would not cause genital herpes would it?  Again, my apologizes for the uneducated questions - I'm somewhat learning from reading this forum and other sources online, but many of the sources found online often lead to conflicting information.

Thanks again!

Having said all that, if you just can't stand the uncertainty, you could have an HSV blood test now. If positive for HSV1, it is too soon to be from the recent kissing event; it would show you're just one of the 50% with longstanding infection, probably since childhood.

Threads normally are closed after two follow-up exchanges. I just forgot to do it last time, but now will close it. I hope the discussion has been helpful.