The first thing is not to freak out. The virus in your system will thrive due to your immune system being bathed with stress hormones. Try to relax and follow your awesome regimen for herpes treatment.
While it is quite possible that you could just wake up with a herpes outbreak and have had no early warning signs (this has happened to me – although in hindsight, I probably had mild warning symptoms and was too busy to notice or chalked them up to PMS, ovulation or just generally being a chick and having weird pangs in my abdomen…), it is most likely that for a full blown outbreak, you will experience the following three stages:
Herpes prodrome or warning stage: My prodromal symptoms seem to always start in my left leg (which is interesting in that 100% of my outbreak sites are on the right side of my body. Strange but true.) My left butt cheek (aka: the left side of my ass) will feel bruised and sore. The bruising – I would not exactly call it pain, but it is sore – spreads down my thigh and will quite often hang out in the back of my knee. This can last anywhere from 12 – 36 hours. I cannot stress that this is the most important time to undertake some form of viral suppression. Natural or pharmaceutical.
If your body is unable to overcome the virus, you should start to feel a burning, tingling, itching feeling where the herpes bumps/blisters will arrive. There can be one single blister/sore or a grouping of smaller blisters. I have found that the smaller herpes blisters are easier to heal. The single larger herpes blister seems to be deeper in the tissue and in my experience, left alone without treatment can often take up to 10 days to heal.
When the herpes bumps/sores are full blown and in blister stage they can be quite painful. Each blister will be filled with fluid and the area surrounding any herpes outbreaks will be red and sore. It’s really not the end of the world, and with the exception of a few rare cases (keep in mind the first outbreak is usually the worst) any outbreak should not hamper your daily activities. Unless of course your activity that day involved having sex. Sorry. Work to keep the entire outbreak area clean (and dry) and when the sores begin to burst (it isn’t as bad as it sounds and at this point there is usually some relief from the intensity and swelling of the outbreak) you can begin to apply Vitamin E to speed up the healing.
During the final stage the sores will crust over (again, sounds worse that it is… And for the love of God, unless you are some sort of expert gymnast or yoga guru, it would be a miracle if you can even see the outbreak!) and heal.
There may be some residual tenderness but once the sore is closed it can heal relatively quickly. Keep up with the Vitamin E and don’t have sex too soon!
You will know when it’s gone. Trust me.
Related posts:
- My name is Nanci and I have a vaginal herpes outbreak There I said it. Writing this blog I feel pressure to remain outbreak free. That in order for me to be credible and communicate my message that having herpes does not in any way make you less attractive, sexy, and...
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Hey!
I’ve had herpes for 6years and haven’t had an outbreak for nearly 2.
Your blog inspired me to write my own telling my story of how I finally treated herpes and to reassure anyone who suspects they may have it so thank you!
Keep up the good work