The symptoms of herpes make most people cringe when they see them and create a visceral reaction of judgment. While people who are educated on herpes learn to have tolerance and sympathy towards those who suffer from this disease most people manifest at best a desire to keep a big distance. If these people used to be your friends or family this can create strong feelings of alienation. You can wind up being an outcast in your own peer group.
Symptoms of herpes are usually very hard to confuse with other things - unless you have never had any experience with the disease - and so it can be quite easy even for inexperienced people to quickly diagnose the presence of herpes.
The virus spreads through symptomatic and asymptomatic viral shedding. You need to come into contact with some form of viable herpes shedding in order to become infected. Following this infection you can remain symptom free for around 2 to 20 days and then you will have your first outbreak. Please note however that some people never show any outward symptoms of herpes and yet they are still carrying it and they may be infecting other people as well.
The first outbreak will usually be the most severe and it will start off with a tingling sensation in the area. After that sores develop on the surface of the skin or mucosa's - either on the face or on the uro-genital area. Sores can appear both inside and outside the vagina and are usually painful for women. It can take up to 3 weeks for these sores to heal. They go through cycles of suppuration, healing and crusting and then again start to suppurate. The liquid is filled with the herpes simplex virus and can infect others if they come into contact with the lesions. It is the most common way others get infected.
The symptoms of herpes can persist for more than 3 weeks if your body has a weakened immune system or if you are under a lot of emotional stress. The fact that most people are devastated when they begin to suspect they have herpes makes this initial outbreak last longer that it should.
The best way to diagnose herpes - the golden standard as it were - is to go to a lab to get tested. They take samples from the outbreak region and culture them in a dish. The reliability of this test is around 70 to 80% as the virus may no longer be viable.
If you want to know right now if what you have are symptoms of herpes and if you are likely infected then the best way is to see images of outbreaks, you can find a collection of images of the symptoms of herpes by visiting: Symptoms of Herpes dot Com.
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