Many, many years ago I was called in the middle of the night by the younger sister of a good friend who was sure she had just discovered herself with genital herpes. After talking to her about the blisters, I too was convinced she had genital herpes (at 21 with zero medical training, what else could it be?!), and I talked to her for over an hour about what it was like to live with female genital herpes. I felt bad for her because she was just 16 – one year younger than I was when I was diagnosed and I remember being glad that I had already lived through several years of herpes, had already told one two? (who can remember..) people before having sex with them, and had basically learned to live with herpes.
I had not quite yet learned to love my body or worship sex but I’ll save that for a future post.
But I was over the moon for her when a few days later she called to say she did not have genital herpes. What she did have was impetigo. And what is impetigo? If you find yourself with blisters on your genitals (vagina, anus, labia – surrounding area..) it is quite possible that while you might have genital herpes, it is very possible that you might have something quite different. Here we will compare herpes with impetigo.
Vaginal herpes is a virus and impetigo is a bacterial infection. If you don’t know the difference between a virus and a bacteria, I suggest you do quick check on Google. There are two bacteria that cause impetigo: Staph and Strep (I know they have big fat long medical names, but for the point of this post – it’s staph and strep for me…) Yes, that would be the same *strep* as strep throat (the little bugger gets around).
Strep bacteria causes redness, clusters of blisters or sores that burst and form a yellowish brown crust (sound familiar?), while staph bacteria tend to produce larger blisters or sores that are filled with fluid but do not burst. Here is the kicker: Impetigo is itchy but it is not painful. I can tell you from experience that vaginal herpes hurts. Not always a lot. But it does hurt. Sore, painful, burning – not just itchy. As impetigo is caused by common bacteria, is quite contagious, and usually starts with a simple scratch, it is very possible to find yourself with impetigo on your genitals. But (very important!) herpes will 99.99% of the time heal itself. It is a virus that is living out a life cycle (as an outbreak) and as it dies, the herpes sores will heal. Impetigo will not go away or heal without anti-biotics. And in many cases, untreated it will get worse and spread to other parts of your body. Like, fast.
Good news for impetigo: once treated, you are done with it. Word. Bad news for the rest of us on the team: Herpes will be back. So there you go.
See a Doctor. Get tested. Seek treatment. Enjoy life.
