Herpes Testing 101: Understanding Your Options and Advocating for Yourself
Aside from herpes transmission, types and accuracy of testing are popular questions. Whether you’re someone who has a partner with herpes, are looking to confirm your results, or just want to know your herpes status (because, reminder: it’s not included in standard STI screenings✨), here are a few basics (read: an overview, outline; not detailed) about available testing methods.
1. Viral Culture: used if there are symptoms present. Accuracy depends on stage of lesions
2. PCR: Provider swabs or scrapes a sample of the lesions for rapid testing. @labcorp reports a turnaround of 2-4 days. This test can also detect herpes from samples of spinal fluid.
3. Type-specific serological testing: blood tests! If you’ve read a result with IgG or IgM (more on these later), you’ve likely had a herpes blood test.
As always, available testing, sadly, doesn’t translate to accessible testing. Healthcare providers can turn patients away from herpes screening/certain types of testing for a variety of reasons. Perhaps a patient doesn’t fit their criteria of the “type” to have herpes. They might say “everyone already has it anyway” (I mean, true, but it’s also a responsible step in advocating for your sexual health and sharing your status with partners). Or they could just say, “Well, it’s not mandated by the CDC.”
If you’re seeking a herpes screening/test, the best advice I can give you is to do your research and be prepared to advocate. This is an unfortunate reality, especially for marginalized populations who already experience the burden of emotional labor and advocacy in these situations and spaces.
Whether herpes becomes mandated in screenings or not, I hope that screening/testing becomes more accessible and available in the near future.