Hi! I just read your message on a pregnancy post with someone who tested positive for hsv 1 and 2 and I don’t know if you can help me out. I’m not pregnant but I may be in a similar situation.

Okay, so I live in an African country called Nigeria, not sure if you’ve heard of it. Since you are a lab technician, I felt maybe you might be able to explain the hsv result to me and how accurate it is.

I go for STI screenings every now and then and decided to go for one this year. I did Hsv test and 5 others. The 5 others were negative. I have kissed a lot, but allowed oral sex from only 2 people so far in my life. No penetration yet. I’m 25.

So the name of the Hsv test went like this: Hsv 1 and 2 IGg antibodies to Herpes Simplex Virus 1&2 - Serum. Result value - 24.6 (Positive).

Then it went on to write Reference ranges : >11 Positive. 9-11> Equivocal. <9 Negative.

Now I have a lot of questions regarding the way this test was done and how accurate or recent it could be, because:

1.) I didn’t even get a value for each of the Hsv at least. To know the index. Isn’t that what a proper test should look like?

2.) Most tests usually separate each Hsv. Why wasn’t mine differentiated? Why did I get just one value?

3.) Why did the cut off index for positive start from ‘greater than 11’. Everywhere online, I’ve read, cut off index used to determine positivity is usually any number above 3.

4.)Could it be that whatever kit used produces a higher number so they had to increase the cut off to determine positivity too?

5.) Are there different kinds of Kits?

There is no way I can do a swab as I don’t get sores or anything, I only saw a tiny dot on my lip last year which made me curious, but there was no pain, tingle, burning, blisters, discomfort or anything that I’ve read about herpes online and I heard first outbreaks are painful or something, so I decided to do a blood test which has only made me more confused.