[Question #13342] Persistent lower body skin burning, no sores

4 days ago

Hello,

I am at a loss regarding a recent exposure (different from my exposure I asked about 2 days ago).

Situation and timeline:

- I have no history of cold sores

- Promiscuous woman (NOT A CSW), drinker and weed smoker

- Last week we had what I thought was a safe exposure: protected vaginal sex with intact condom and a super brief unprotected oral sex session of literally 15 seconds. On top of that, we were in a swimming pool before and after the sex (which I have read might help kill bacteria).

- DAY 5: tested negative for gonorrhea, chlamydia and trich (and HIV but that was for a previous encounter)

- DAY 6: I started having a burning feeling in my entire lower body area, bilateral. It's a feeling as if my skin has been sunburned and it's pretty much constant throughout the day. It goes from the front thighs all the way down to the knees and calves.

The burning affects the scrotum as well.

It is not psychological, and it's noticeable the most when I have clothes rubbing on the legs.

- DAY 8: it's been 2 days of this burning sensation and I have no sores nor lesions whatsoever. Did accurate inspections and my genital skin appears as normal as it's always been. Not even the slightest sign of redness or anything.

I also have no fever, no pain when urinating. Just this constant feeling as if my legs were slowly roasting (and it's about 65 degrees where I am right now) and perhaps some little tingling every few hrs.

I started thinking about herpes because it's the one STD that I haven't tested at day 5.

How worried should I be? No blisters in the next couple of days means I am out of the woods despite these symptoms?

Terri Warren, RN, Nurse Practitioner

4 days ago

The condom use reduced the risk of transmission of HSV 2 from her to you by 65%, so not perfect, but useful.

The oral sex encounter was so brief that I don't think that's too much of a risk either.

In addition, your symptoms really don't sound like herpes to me as generalized burning of the genital area is not a normal symptom of HSV AND you not having any lesions is also not consistent with HSV. I seriously doubt that HSV is the problem here.

Terri

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3 days ago

Thanks Terri for the reassurance.

Do you think it's a possibility that my generalized skin burning is the HSV virus that's replicating in the body ?

My mind is racing just because I can't find an explanation for this outside of an STD (and i tested negative for all the others).

Also, if this burning were to stop at some point (and still no visible blisters) do you think i can resume sexual activities without risk of infecting others?

Terri Warren, RN, Nurse Practitioner

3 days ago

I think it is unlikely that all this burning is due to a herpes infection that doesn't present with any of the typical symptoms. I think we forget sometimes that when we rub our bodies up against someone elses body, skin bacteria can be shared that is normal for one person and not for the other. If you still want to know if you have herpes, I would wait 10-12 weeks and get an igG for HSV 1 and 2 but ONLY through labCorp at this time as they are the largest lab around using the best available test.

Terri

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2 days ago

Hi Terri,

As a final follow up before closing this thread I have 2 questions:

1) Today is day 10 since the exposure and I have no blisters nor skin anomalies. The sunburn sensation has faded a bit (although still present). Do you think I can put this incident behind me from an HSV standpoint?

2) If I choose to get tested in a few months, is there a risk of false positives with the IgG test?

Thanks for your help!

Terri Warren, RN, Nurse Practitioner

1 days ago

I think you are likely not infected if you have no symptoms within 10 days, but people do acquire HSV without symptoms so this is not a guarantee.

If you choose to get tested, be certain to use LabCorp - they have an excellent test now, with a very low rate of false positives for HSV-2.

Terri

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