How To Tell if Your Herpes Outbreak Is Over

The external signs or symptoms of genital herpes can vary on an individual basis for each patient with each outbreak.  Only your doctor can provide an accurate diagnosis of the symptoms and whether they are related to a genital herpes outbreak.

The virus most commonly responsible for genital herpes is the HSV-2 virus.  However, with the increased number of variant sexual behavior HSV-1 has been found both above and below the waist, as has HSV-2.

A herpes outbreak can be painful, uncomfortable and change your daily activities until the signs your herpes outbreak is over.  There are some questions about how to tell if your herpes outbreak over, which are a result of studies that have determined that people can continue to shed the HSV-1 virus even when they don’t have a current active infection.

If the question is whether how to tell is your herpes outbreak over so you aren’t uncomfortable the answer may be different than if you were to ask if you were still able to shed the virus and infect someone else.

The external symptoms of genital herpes are varied from patient to patient and from outbreak to outbreak in the same patient.  The general symptoms include sores that look like red bumps or blisters and can be on the vagina, penis, anus, buttocks, thighs, internal vaginal, cervical, urinary tract or areas of the body where the virus enters through broken skin.

Most often these sores or outbreaks are episodic and recurrent that are interspersed with periods of remission that can last several years.  Patients will experience pain, itching and burning the area of the sores.

Typically in the first outbreak of genital herpes the symptoms will appear within 2 to 20 days after the contact and may continue for up to 2 weeks or more.  The first infection can be so mild that it goes unnoticed but it is just as likely that the first attack will cause sores that are visible and painful.

Other symptoms during the first infection can include a second crop of sores or a flu-like episode complete with fever and swollen glands.  But others may have very mild signs or not even notice they have an infection.

When the herpes virus first reactivates the person will have early symptoms that include itching or burning feeling in the genital or anal area, pain in the legs, buttocks or genitals, discharge fluid from the vagina or a feeling of pressure in the abdomen.

Within days sores appear as red bumps that progress to blisters and result in open sores.  The person may also experience headache, muscle aches, fever or swollen glands.  However, not all people with genital herpes experience visible sores during an outbreak and may not know they infectious.

As the infections progresses there are signs your herpes outbreak is over which include a movement from a wet ulceration on the skin to dry crusty scab like formations over the ulcer as the sore begins to heal.  The crust hardens and the sore dries as new skin grows underneath the scab.

Healing of the external HSV-1 or HSV-2 sore is complete when the crust falls of or the sore dries without forming a crust.  The area may continue to look red and different from the surrounding skin.

Is this how to tell if your herpes outbreak is over?  Not necessarily.  During this asymptomatic phase the virus is usually dormant, which means it’s not active on the level of the skin.  But even if your body doesn’t recognize that there is an outbreak the risk is real that the virus is actively replicating and you are shedding the virus to the environment and can spread the virus.

This is why even though a person with genital herpes doesn’t have any symptoms they should use a latex condom as a barrier during sex.  While the virus can’t get through the latex condom it is important that the barrier covers the area of the skin that is infected to avoid skin-to-skin contact.

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