If I tested negative for genital herpes, by default, can I assume that I don't have oral herpes?

I recently began to get physical with a guy, no sex, just oral. I had began to have funny symptoms of that of a yeast infection. Also, i got what LOOKED like it could have been a cold sore in the corner of my mouth, but it wasn't painful, nor did it leak puss, or scab over, my friend (who has had one) even said that it looked like a pimple, and NOT a cold sore. I was checked for chlamydia, gonorrhea, general bacterias (such as yeast) and for a urinary tract infection, and everything came back negative.

My assumption is, if I am free of genital herpes, then he is as well, since there was genital to genital contact (no penetration), meaning I couldn't have been infected from giving him oral. Also, since he performed oral on ME, and I still resulted NEGATIVE genital herpes, then he didn't have it to spread to me orally, either.

In summation, if the results came back negative for GENITAL herpes, is it safe to assume that I don't have oral herpes, by default?

I forgot to mention that I was also tested for genital herpes, and the result was ALSO negative (along with all the other tests mentioned).

No - in fact you can't even assume you don't have genital herpes as the culture only tests positive if you are currently shedding the virus - which you only do for a very small fraction of the time if you have it.

The culture isn't much good - as it would ONLY show positive if you had the virus AND were having an outbreak in the genital area. If you had the virus and WEREN'T having an outbreak, i.e. the virus was in it's dormant phase, which it is 90% of the time, your test would be negative.

So a culture would be pretty hopeless at showing whether you were infected with genital herpes unless you had current lesions, and would DEFINITELY not show whether you had oral herpes at all. It is impossible for a genital culture to show if you have a herpes infection of the mouth.

The ONLY way of finding out whether you have a dormant genital herpes infection or an oral herpes infection is to get a type specific BLOOD test rather than a culture.

The best test by far is the Herpes Western Blot, which is over 99% accurate - but I think it is only currently used at the University if Washington. The next best is the Herpeselect Elisa. It is important to know which you are having becasue the older tests are quite inaccurate. For info on herpes tests please see:

http://www.ashastd.org/pdfs/blood_test.p...

A type specific blood test, which you would have to request as it can be quite expensive, would tell you if you had a herpes infection and whether it was caused by hsv-1 or hsv-2.

If you tested positive for hsv-1 - as 80% of people would - they would generally assume it was an oral herpes infection.

If you tested positive for hsv-2, the assumption would generally be that it was a genital infection.

It is definitely worth getting the type-specific blood test as a minimum of one in four women over 16 have genital herpes, and 8 out of 10 have oral herpes.

You need to ask the doctor which test they gave you for Herpes. There is a type specific blood test which tests for both HSV1 and HSV2. However, you can be tested for only one or the other as well. HSV1 and HSV2 can occur in both oral and genital regions even though they have their sites of preference. They can both also be transmitted through oral sex. Without knowing which test the doctor performed, you should not assume.

ask a STD doctor online: http://www.stdromance.com/ask_counselor

u should get another test done in 3-6 months sometimes herpes takes a while to develope. u wern't tested for herpes in the first place go back and get a test done for it. ask them to do a test for herpes. just because they tested for everything else doesn't mean that a test for herpes was included.