Genital herpes via sharing food/drink

[Db2grzi5]

I ate some food leftover by my friend (who has genital herpes) left when staying with me. I'm now terrified that her virus was in her saliva which was left on the food and that in eating it I may also have it now. I wish I'd thought it through before I ate it :weep: and I'm not sure if she ate straight from the container but she very well might have.

Does anyone know a) if the genital strain is passed through saliva (not skin contact) and b) how long it could survive on dairy food in the fridge? Then how long til I could get tested if need be?

[countrygirl]

The infectious part of your friend when she has an oubreak of genital herpes is the fluid in the blisters on her genitals, so if you wore her old knickers for example or shared a towel that she had used on her genitals after the blisters had burst then yes you risk catching it in your genital region. This applies to all herpes viruses, as in don't pick your mouth cold sore and then rub your eye or touch your genitals as you could theoretically move the virus laden fluid to those areas.

Your friend does not carry the virus in her saliva - the virus is only present in the fluid from the blisters as it would be in chickepox or shingles attacks.

As I very much doubt she rubbed her food over her weeping genital blisters you have nothing to worry about. Hope this helps.

[Db2grzi5]

Thanks, countrygirl. That does help, but now I'm worried about towels :blush:. I'm fairly certain we didn't share towels, but what if mine touched hers? How long would the virus survive?

[Fishmanpa]

Ok... hope this helps. What you describe is impossible. Even the towel thing... The circumstances for that to happen are like the planets aligning or hitting the lotto. Whether you believe it or not is the question.

Positive thoughts

[Phuzella]

Totally agree with Fishmanpa :)

[countrygirl]

Fishmanpa is right. For the towel to be a problem your friend would have to have rubbed her towel all over her weeping sores then you would have to have rubbed her towel covered in fluid over your genital region. What are the chances of this actually happening!!

[Phuzella]

And your genital region would have to have broken skin in places

[Lin71]

The herpes virus only survives about ten seconds outside of the body. You'd need to have been pretty fast with any towel-sharing activities and there's no way you'd have caught it from the food sharing scenario.

Don't worry! You haven't caught it.

Lin x

[MissyMischief]

Maybe this is TMI, but my ex boyfriend had herpes. We were together for years and have been apart for years, and I've never had an outbreak, which I will take as a sign that I never caught it. And naturally, we were sharing a lot more than towels...

Be that as it may, I realize it's the anxiety making you uber paranoid. I know how hard it is to shake those worrying, obsessive thoughts.

[Db2grzi5]

As always, thank you to everyone who replied. It really helps. Crossing my fingers and trying not to dwell on it.

Hope everyone is doing well today.

[Db2grzi5]

Argh... Back again. I think I read somewhere that flu like symptoms accompany herpes infection and now a few days later I have a runny nose, blocked sinuses and sneezing. No itching yet but I'm scared it's going to start :weep:

[Fishmanpa]

Argh... Back again. I think I read somewhere that flu like symptoms accompany herpes infection and now a few days later I have a runny nose, blocked sinuses and sneezing. No itching yet but I'm scared it's going to start :weep:


Ok... hope this helps. What you describe is impossible. Even the towel thing... The circumstances for that to happen are like the planets aligning or hitting the lotto. Whether you believe it or not is the question.

Positive thoughts

[Xtrastrongbint]

It won't DB2 - I suffer from mouth herpes and I've never given myself genital herpes - and I share everything with myself! It's not going to happen. It's impossible :)