To make a long story short, I met a girl off a dating app I’d been talking to for a few weeks. When we met up, we made out in her car and as things got more intense, she said she needed to tell me that her partner gave her herpes a year ago. She said if we were about to have sex it’s something I needed to know.
She said she was taking medication for it, and no we didn’t have sex. But this was two days ago and I’m seeing some red dots around my mouth and I’m paranoid that she could have passed it to me? I’m just naive when it comes to this sort of thing and I need some advice.
5 comments
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Where on her body did she get infected? And, did that body part come in contact with your mouth?
It’s possible, though less likely if she’s on antivirals. Some risk, not no risk. If she knows her body, not particularly high risk. But, worth keeping in mind.
You should probably go see a doctor and have them test you.
Herpes is super common and generally benign. Most people will remain asymptomatic their whole life, or have occasional outbreaks in the form of cold sores. It sounds like she may have more regular cold sores and take a medication to treat/prevent them. This doesn’t mean she’s 100% uncontagious, but the risk is much lower.
It’s not a bad idea to get tested in this situation (if for no other reason than to know your status, a lot of people are born with herpes or get it in childhood), but again, so long as she didn’t have an active outbreak the risk of transmission is fairly low. If you have sores, they’ll swab those, but they can also just run a blood test to determine if you have herpes and which simplex.
Herpes, and some other STIs (HPV, syphilis, etc) can be spread through close skin to skin contact, especially if there are open sores. Herpes in particular can be passed by sharing a cup/straw etc when someone has a cold sore. A condom definitely still helps and is a good idea for sexual contact, but it’s substantially less effective for herpes than it is at preventing infections transmitted via bodily fluids (ex. HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea ).
Depends where she has herpes. If she has it genitally only than kissing you won’t give you herpes. If she has oral herpes called cold sores than she could have passed oral herpes to your mouth.