I was tested negative for all stds.  My partner tested all negative except has oral herpes one.  Can I we have unprotected sex with getting genital herpes?  Wondering tips on not getting genital herpes or oral herpes myself.

I was tested negative for all stds.  My partner tested all negative except has oral herpes one.  Can I we have unprotected vaginal sex with getting genital herpes?  I think I can still get genital herpes with unprotected oral sex. Wondering tips on not getting genital herpes or oral herpes myself.

Do you know if your partner has any history of cold sores?  It would be great to know the location of their HSV 1 infection before answering your question.  Also, the standard IgG test misses 30% of HSV 1 infections, compared to the gold standard western blot, so it is possible that you are infected and the test missed it.  I will await your response about your partner before answering.

Terri
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my partner was tested and was positive blood test for hsv1... how would he know if he was positive for oral or genital hsv1 in a blood test if he is Asymptomatic?

He could not know.  However, if he is over 50, let's say, it is more likely that the infection is oral - much new HSV 1 in younger people is genital.  The only way he can know for sure is if he has an outbreak somewhere.  Remember that oral herpes can also present on the chin, in the nose  and sometimes even in the eye.  And genital herpes can occur on the penis, around the anus, on the buttocks and on the thigh.  It's good to think about these alternate locations when trying to help someone identify where their HSV 1 infection is on their body.  If you are truly negative (which we don't know), he can take daily antiviral therapy to reduce the risk of infecting you and if you want to be super duper careful, he can use condoms with intercourse and not give you oral sex.  There are tradeoffs that must be made for the ultimate caution - not sure if you are interested in him taking these precautions.

Terri
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