An Answer to the question - How to Know If You Have Herpes?
Many individuals often ask how to know if you have herpes because they are reluctant in seeking medical advice for diagnosing the problem. They would rather opt to check them out for themselves rather than asking people about it. This is for the reason that herpes have been a sexually transmitted disease that gives an individual a social stigma if he/she has it.
Herpes can be of two types: herpes type 1 and herpes type 2. Type 1 or cold sores are often not sexually transmitted and do not cause genital herpes (as what many people are afraid of). However, it can still cause genital herpes when one person having it may have contact with the genitals such as in oral sex.
Steps on how to know if you have genital herpes begins with examining the signs and symptoms of herpes. Genital herpes is characterized by an open tiny blister located on the genitals that produces a clear discharge. It may not have a foul smell but complicated cases may have a discharge that is foul. It is an open blister and differs with genital warts because warts often look like a tiny cauliflower bump on the genitals. Aside from appearance of blisters, presence of flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache and body malaise together with the blisters indicate an infection. However, most of genital herpes do not show classical symptoms and are confusing with the occurrence of other genital infections such as dermatitis, fungal infection or urethritis. These make it difficult on how to know if you have herpes.
The most definite way of knowing whether you have herpes or not is facing the problem and consult a medical professional. Doctors usually do the following:
- Conduct physical examinations of the genitals, discharges and blisters.
- Implement pelvic examinations for women to check the internal reproductive organs such as the cervix.
- Palpate the lymph nodes to check enlargement as a sign of infection.
- Collect samples of discharges and subject to laboratory testing. Laboratory testing is usually done to arrive with a definitive diagnosis.
Laboratory Testing for Herpes
How to know if you have herpes? The surest way to know is to subject yourself to the following laboratory examinations:
- Viral culture to determine presence of virus in the blisters
- Direct fluorescent antibody or DFA to determine the microorganism
- Polymerase chain reaction or PCR to assess DNA of the virus
- Immunodot glycoprotein G-specific HSV examination. This is the latest test to differentiate HSV type 1 from type 2
These tests involve the swabbing of blisters or getting blood samples from the patient. Patients should be informed of the procedure before undergoing it. These tests are often expensive and time consuming.
Other practitioners utilize Pap smear for women however; this is not a definitive step on how to know if you have herpes so it should not be done to save time and money, although a patient can still request for this to determine cervical malignancies.
Measures on how to know if you have herpes are not cost effective so prevention is still the best option. Finally, asking questions about how to know if you have herpes should be done with the support of the partner to acquire information for both who potentially have genital herpes.
