Is It Possible To Be Infected With Herpes Twice

If you already have herpes can another person infect you again: In 1980 a medical study done in Atlanta, Georgia revealed that genital herpes will show up in another type of the virus. Individuals who have a particular type of herpes are susceptible to being infected with another strain of the virus. The general consensus is that getting a second strain of the virus is a lot more difficult than it was to be infected the first time. If the individual has antibodies that are fighting against type 2 herpes, it is extremely unlikely they will be infected with type 2 herpes again.

Someone with genital herpes has a very slight possibility of getting the infection a second time according to most studies. In general a person who already has genital herpes is not actually catching a second case of genital herpes but having a breakout of what they already have. Once a person has a particular strain of herpes they are building antibodies against that strain and it is very rare to be reinfected by another person with the same strain.

So how are you able to tell the types of herpes apart: To accomplish this a “DNA fingerprint” is necessary and this is a test not even a specialist in the field can do. In very unusual cases two different types of herpes on different occasions have been detected and even more rarely two different types of herpes were seen on the same breakout. Being infected with a different type of herpes is a very rare condition.

If you have been infected with yet another type of herpes how do you know: When there is antibodies built up against type 1 herpes, the body also has some defenses against type 2 herpes. This makes being infected with type 2 herpes a little harder but it does still happen.

The breakout of the second strain of herpes will be milder when the person already has type 1 or type 2. When the individual already has type 1 herpes and then is infected with type 2 genital herpes there probably will not be any visible signs. If there are signs the person may just not notice the difference. Actually this will hold true for either type of herpes.

Frequent cold sores would be a good indication that the individual has type 1 herpes, however, absence of cold sores could indicate that the type 1 herpes is in a dormant state. The only accurate method of determining the type of herpes that an individual may have been infected with is using a test like the Western blot.