[Question #11390] HSV-1 Titer change to non reactive Am I Negative now?
14 months ago
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I am 62 year old male. Negative on both HSV in Oct '24 until Dec 15, 2023 HSV-1 titer 24. Rechecked and titer drop to 6.85 on Feb 7, '24. No oral nor genital lesions at all. Last partner said she never even had a cold sore, no answer on titer! I started taking Valtrex 500 mg once a day March 11 to protect the woman I started dating who is negative for both HSV. I took another titer (all IgG tests) test and became non-reactive at 0.562 on 4/14/24! Rechecked again on 5/14/24 at 0.559 (<0.9 non reactor). I read about neutralizing antibody especially in people over 50 and wondered if my body was able to clear it on its own. I did not read anywhere that the taking of Valtrex would make the titer drop to below reactive levels. Is this something that happens to everyone on Valtrex or did I have a miracle (I prayed to God to clear it and neutralizing antibodies could do that!) If this is common place will going off the medication allow it to go back up. I would like to stop the RX and recheck a month later. However I do not want to do that if sexually active. If I remain non-reactive off the RX am I negative and cured?
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Terri Warren, RN, Nurse Practitioner
14 months ago
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I'm so sorry to have missed this post!
You did not clear this on your own but you may not have ever had it, very hard to know because the HSV 1 IgG is a poor test - it misses 30% of infections compared to the gold standard herpes western blot. Meds would not impact the herpes western blot so if you want to know if you really have HSV 1 then you should get a blot.
I'm not sure about titers - we don't see them anymore, but you had an index value of 24, then you are almost certainly infected with HSV 1, but it if is a titer, that's a very old indicator of infection and I can't say how reliable it is
Terri
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