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What Does This HSV1 And 2 Blood Report Indicate?

Posted on Thu, 7 May 2015

Question: My blood report came back saying Igm reactivity to both HSV1 and 2 may represent cross-reactive HSV antibodies rather than exposure to both HSV1 and 2, what does that mean. Thank you

Answered by Dr. S. Samanta (13 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
It should be correlated clinically!

Detailed Answer:
Hi! thanks for your health query!

In fact, IgM antibody indicates acute or recent infection and in your case the positive antibody is related to both Type 1 and type 2 HSV. It is unlikely that in the same time someone is infected by both the types; moreover, type 1 infects mainly neck/oral regions (above the waist) and type 2 infects genitals (below waist) until unless one is immunocompromised !

IgG tire or follow-up IgM titres could solve the issue or just see the pattern of involvement; that's all!

regards,

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj

Follow up: Dr. S. Samanta (1 hour later)

Thanks for answering...I never had HSV1 or HSV 2 in my life. The man I was with later, told me he got cold sores from time to time but was not having a break out at the time we got together. We couldn't have sex via penatration because I was to small and he was too big so we had oral sex. I had a break out in the genital region, he didn't get anything. Thats when I went and had a blood test 1 week later. Is it obvious that I got HSV1 in the genital area? From what I read this is possible or not?

Answered by Dr. S. Samanta (3 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Yes, it is possible!

Detailed Answer:
Hi! yes, it is possible to get HSV1 through oral sex; but please confirm it when an outbreak is there, with a specialist in infectious disease.

thanks and regards,

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj