Vaginal Herpes

Some individuals out there go years with the impression that they are infected with HSV type 2 when they are not, and vice versa. Being misdiagnosed either way can be detrimental, especially if you happen to be pregnant or infected with HIV during the period of misdiagnosing. So if you have any doubts, or even if you want  a second opinion to help confirm, there are tests that you can do yourself, or that you can ask your doctor to perform for you, to help completely discount vaginal herpes. The Cell Culture test is the type that needs to be performed by a doctor. During this test fluid or viral cultures from either the blisters or sores is used as samples.

The doctors allow the virus to multiply, even going so far as to assist them in doing so, so that they can study the results and see if the sore was caused from HSV. Another type of testing done by doctors is the direct fluorescent antibody test. Combing a HSV with a solution and some fluorescent dye, specialists are able to tell if the virus is present from the glow that is produced. This glow is caused by the sticking of your antibodies (sent out by your immune system to attack the virus) to the HSV virus. Both of the tests previously mentioned are useful since they are able to pinpoint which strand of the Herpes virus you have (HSV type 1 or HSV type 2).  While a positive from one of these tests is very accurate, false negatives are possible if the sores are either healing or if the outbreak that is undergoing the testing is not your first one.

You would assume that blood tests would be the most accurate, when really it is possible to get both false positives as well as false negatives because of the loopholes in blood testing. For instance, if you have been infected and you have a blood test soon after then your test could come back negative when really the virus just has not made itself known yet. A positive result may need to be backed by more than one test if your chance of getting the virus was extremely low. Blood tests may be faulty at times, but they are the best when it comes to checking if you have genital herpes, or any other form of HSV, even when no symptoms have appeared. For tests that can be done at home order from Private Diagnostics. While not urine tests, these tests do look at the fluid from the blisters or sores from the infected site. From this, the lab will be able to properly tell if you have HSV while another test can tell you what type.

The thing about these home tests is that they usually cost $200 or more. You can test for any type of sexually transmitted disease and there’s a combo pack offered if you want to test for Gonorrhea and Chlamydia at the same time. The contents of the herpes kit include swabs to collect the lesions as well as transport tubs to put them in. Biohazard bags for shipping. A test requisition and order form. And finally, a piece of tape and an ice pack to freeze the specimen on before sending it to the lab for testing.

Though home testing may not be nerve soothing, and hospital testing is not much better, there are two tests that fall woefully short of both of those alternatives. The Tzanck and PCR tests. The Tzanck test is a mix between the first and second tests mentioned in this article in that it takes a sample from the sore or blister and puts it under a microscope. Only in this case dye is added to help differentiate which cells are infected with the herpes virus. While the PCR (or polymerase chain reaction) test is accurate since it looks for pieces of DNA belonging to the virus, doctors are unsure as to how it should be used to help diagnose vaginal herpes and therefore do not usually try it.