How does the doctor diagnose genital herpes?
Because the genital herpes sores may not be visible to the naked eye, a doctor or other health care worker may have to do several laboratory tests to try to prove that any other symptoms are caused by the herpes virus. A person may still have genital herpes, however, even if the laboratory tests don’t show the virus in the body.
A blood test cannot show whether a person can infect another person with the herpes virus. A blood test, however, can show if a person has been infected at any time with HSV. There are also newer blood tests that can tell whether a person has been infected with HSV 1 and/or 2.
Reprinted from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health
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