On about August 29, 2007 I was diagnosed with having HSV through a
Real Time PCR screening. About a week or two before that I had been
with a woman is HSV positive. When I observed something unusual I went
into the clinic at my school. “This test is 100%,” they told me. “If
it’s there, we’ll know.” A few days late I got the call that it was
positive. Other than a few events which occurred around this time
period, I have experienced no outbreaks. I believe my last was in
September? But as the clinician suggested, I started taking Acyclovir
whenever I got that feeling that an outbreak was coming on so that
could be why.

In early March 2008 another University was hosting clinical trials for
a new suppressive therapy drug. I applied and was initially accepted,
but when the blood serum test for IgG antibodies came back, it said I
was negative for HSV 1 and 2.

Of course I was confused by these results so I decided I would discuss
this with my family doctor. She had a full panel run on me testing for
everything all the way down to my cholesterol. Hep, HIV and Chlamydia
all came back negative but positive for IgG and IgM antibodies.
Unfortunately the test didn’t distinguish between HSV 1 and 2. At this
time my doctor did though start me on suppressive therapy.

Armed with this new information I returned to the University and
suggested they might want to check their tests. Papers were signed,
documents were faxed between the University, my doctor and myself,
then they invited me back for another test. This was twenty days after
they first passed on to me negative results and within about a week
they called me and said it was still retuned as being negative for HSV
1 and 2.

By this time the Chief Virologist at the University had become
involved and he and I together went over the results of all four
tests. I had educated myself on the varying degrees of accuracy for
the three tests and even contacted each of the laboratories. The IgG
test has degree of accuracy about 96.2% and as I recall it tests for
antibodies produced by your body following an infection. The IgM is a
bit different; some places say it as much as 93.9% accurate in testing
for preliminary antibodies, other sources including that Virologist
suggest it borders malpractice that such a test could be used and
inflict unnecessary worry on a person over a false positive.

Finally the Real Time PCR; everyone agrees that this is the near
perfect test. Unfortunately as the Virologist put it, it’s such a
sensitive test that contamination is almost guaranteed unless taken by
a qualified technician and of course he has zero confidence in the
abilities of the person who administered the test to me. The only
people he felt qualified for such a task were those running a clinic
downtown.

So that’s pretty much it. He went through and dismissed every test
outside of the ones administered at his institution and offered me
this suggestion, stop taking the Acyclovir and wait. If I do have
another outbreak, go to this clinic he recommended and believe what
they tell me.

No matter, this all just has me very anxious; I’m positive, then I’m
not, I’m positive, then I’m not? Have you ever read Dante’s Inferno? I
feel like those souls he encountered in the outer rings of hell; stuck
in the middle, finding anyone’s fate enviable as it is at least a
fate. And honestly I do not know that I can take another test as it
just seems to be a test of my patience and resolve.

I guess more than anything I just needed to vent.