Hello. This seems like such a great place to ask herpes related
questions; so, I thought I would give it a try.

Yesterday, I engaged in oral sex with a woman I recently met and do
not plan to see again (I was visiting another city/state). I do not
currently have a girlfriend and I rarely have sex. I won't get too
graphic. I knew performing oral sex on someone I didn't know very well
was a bad idea. So, even after she asked several times, I continued to
refuse. Finally, I decided to engage in a "very" limited amount of
oral sex with her.

This was the first oral sex I have had in a very long time (still,
inexcusable). So, here's what happened. Within 13 hours of the sex,
after walking into my bathroom, I noticed a number of small watery
blisters just around the outside of my lower right lip. I did not know
they had formed. There was no tingling, itching, flu like symptoms,
etc. In fact, I had looked in the mirror several times throughout the
day without noticing anything out of the ordinary. Also, I have never
had anything like this appear on my lips or face before.

Everything that I have read on the Internet (so far) says that herpes
outbreaks usually occur 2 days or later after exposure. So, maybe I
have had it for a while now and finally had an outbreak. Also, I
wasn't experiencing anymore stress than I normally do. In fact, that
day was even less stressful than most. Needless to say I was upset.
So, I broke the lesions and placed boric acid on the area using a
Kleenex. My dermatologist gave me boric acid last year to treat a
shaving condition and it seemed to really dry out the skin (e.g., hair
bumps). I then went to sleep. The next day, the area was very dry and
only a trace amount of broken skin remained. Certainly not something
that will be noticeable to my coworkers. Although, I figure within a
couple of days there'll be darker scabs as the broken skin heals.

I've looked at pictures on various websites that show horrible looking
herpes facial outbreaks with lesions all over the person's face (e.g.,
cheeks, nose, lips, and chin). So, I admit I'm scared. Also, I did not
kiss this woman (or anyone in a while), but I do like to kiss when I
am actually involved with someone. However, I can't imagine ever
risking hurting someone in the future by exposing them to oral herpes.
I can't imagine anything else that would cause watery blisters around
the outside of the lip like this. I'm also afraid that I will
experience future outbreaks without any warning signs. So, I'm sure I
will find myself looking in mirrors all the time to make sure that I
don't unknowingly have clusters of lesions present.

As a side note, I feel a need to publicly express the following. My
initial reaction was to ask God why he would let something like this
happen to me and I was trying to convince myself that God shares the
blame for not looking over me (especially, since I rarely engage in
risky behavior and I try to live as moral as I can). But, I realize
that I (and whoever possibly infected me) am the only one to blame and
I am ashamed to have for one second felt otherwise. Thanks for
reading.