Dear Health Nurse,
I know a girl who recently told me she had Herpes Type 1 passed on to her lower regions through oral sex. My question to you Health Nurse is how easy is it now for her to pass on the Herpes Virus by oral sex on her ? What are the visible signs of a Type 1 outbreak in the genital area ?
She has taken some medication for her recent infection. Are the risks of her passing it on again mitigated by these medications ? Does she have to have another outbreak to be contagious or can she pass it on without showing any signs of an outbreak ?
Many Thanks
Hi Yman
It is hard to determine how “easy” it would be to pass her genital herpes type 1 to your mouth during oral sex. The one thing we do know is that if she is having an outbreak it would be easy to pass this to your mouth, but if you already have herpes type 1 antibodies in your body it is unlikely that this will happen. Probably the same type of risk if she had cold sores and you were kissing.
Herpes outbreaks can look like small multiple clear filled blisters that burst and then scab over. I have also seen some herpes outbreaks that are mild and hard to notice.
The medication would help reduce the effects of her outbreak but I don’t think it would help with the chances of passing herpes on as there would probably be a lot of virus around given the outbreak. There is good evidence that if some one takes the medication on a daily basis that it will help prevent the transmission of genital herpes type 2 (it may also work for type 1 but we have no studies to prove this).
The easiest time to pass on herpes is when someone is having an outbreak. Asymptomatic shedding (this is when you have no symptoms of a herpes outbreak but the herpes virus is being shed on your skin) happens with the herpes virus so it is still possible to pass it on when the person is having no symptoms. The public health agency of Canada believes that asymptomatic shedding occurs on an average of 2% of days for an average duration of 1.5 days. They also state that Woman with genital type 1 shed less than if they have genital type 2.
Have a look at the thread we did on herpes
https://perb.cc/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=46542
Let us know if you want us to expand on a topic. Remember if you would like to ask me a personal question just send me a PM.
HN
www.stdresource.com