Hello Terri, I’m a male with a single potential HSV exposure on 8/29 involving protected vaginal sex and protected oral sex, and I have no history of cold sores. I’ve had multiple HSV IgG tests using the Roche (Elecsys) assay that were all negative for HSV-1 and HSV-2 at 31, 42, 52, and 82 days post-exposure. My wife is pregnant and due fairly soon, and at the time I believed I was HSV-negative due to having no symptoms; we had unprotected sex on 10/1 (33 days post-exposure) and 10/17 (49 days post-exposure), and she has had no symptoms. My questions are: (1) how reliable are repeated negative Roche HSV IgG results at these time points in ruling out infection, (2) given protected oral and vaginal sex as a male, how confident can I be that my 8/29 exposure was truly low risk, (3) based on this timeline, does this situation fall outside the typical window of concern for neonatal HSV transmission, and (4) given all of the above, would you consider my risk low enough that no further HSV testing or action is needed?

I’ve never had a cold sore or any classic HSV blister-type lesions, orally or genitally. For ~3 weeks I’ve had a small, flat area in the pubic hair region that has not blistered, ulcerated, crusted, or changed in size; it fluctuates between slightly pink and normal skin color, causes no pain, and shows no typical herpetic progression, though I’m aware HSV can present atypically. I’ve also had brief, random sharp or nerve-like pains lasting seconds in the pubic area, testicles, or glans that shift location, are not followed by lesions, and seem to occur mainly when sitting, possibly related to anxiety. I’ve had multiple Roche (Elecsys) HSV IgG tests negative for HSV-1 and HSV-2 at 31, 42, 52, and 82 days post-exposure, and I’ve had no harsh initial genital outbreak. Based on this, I wanted to ask: - Is it reasonable to view the repeatedly negative Roche result at 82 days as strong reassurance against HSV-2? - Given the lack of a significant initial outbreak plus negative Roche testing, does this make genital HSV-1 unlikely despite the known miss rate? - Do the described skin finding and transient, shifting nerve-type pains sound consistent with herpes in your experience? - At this point, would you consider further HSV testing or action necessary?