Quote:
When I saw my doctor a few weeks ago, out of curiosity I asked about herpes testing. He said that you can't actually test for herpes unless you have an outbreak, and in that case then you probably know already anyhow. Does anybody know if this is true?
This does not appear to be the case.
From Herpes.org
http://www.herpes.org/herpesinfo/diagnostictesting.shtml
"Recent developments in testing have been very helpful for type 2 herpes simplex. The POCkit test from www.diagnology.com is a highly type specific test for type 2 herpes simplex. It will detect antibody against herpes simplex type 2 and to an extremely high level of accuracy.4 This also means, though, that the test will not become positive until enough antibody shows up in the blood stream to be able to be detected. This could take as long as three months from the time of infection, but the mean time according to Wald et al in initial testing of this product was 13 days post exposure, though the variation was quite wide.4"
"Second, if an active, blistered lesion is present, ask for a viral culture for herpes simplex, and ask that the virus be typed (to distinguish between type 1 and type 2). If no active lesion is present, the viral culture may not be positive. Females that are having a vaginal discharge might have internal lesions that might be cultured. If the doctor has the ability to perform PCR DNA testing for herpes simplex, ask for that instead of a viral culture. The PCR DNA can find herpes simplex virus even when no symptoms are present."
The material above is written by a doctor.
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