Hi everyone! I thought I’d share my story because it’s a crazy one.

So one day I woke up with these super bad symptoms of redness and sores and pain down there. I literally could not walk because the sores rubbed against each other and i was in so much pain. I immediately went to my university clinic and they said it looks exactly like herpes. Since they were convinced that’s what it was, I started medication for it. I was insanely upset and thought my life was over (which is wasn’t).

After a few days of taking the medication, I didn’t feel any better. In fact I felt worse. So I decided to have a test done. Now keep in mind, I asked my university clinic if I should have a test done to make sure and they said that it wasn’t necessary because they could tell from looking that it was herpes (college doctors SUCK). I got the test done, and a few days later I got my results. NEGATIVE.

Now, some people may say that you have to do a herpes test as soon as you see symptoms, but that is only half true. While it is recommended, there is a test called PCR that is meant for a few days after seeing symptoms and that is the test they did. And even if it was a false negative, the medicine I was taking should have helped by now but it did not.

After that, I emailed the university doctor and was like um so I don’t have herpes, what do I have... and she said that she could look at it again but I would have to pay another $85 for her to look at it (EVEN THO SHES ALREADY LOOKED AT IT) I said no thanks and she prescribed me some medicine for a UTI... A UTI?!?! I DIDNT HAVE ANY SYMPTOMS OF A UTI.

I decided to go to my ACTUAL gynecologist and have her check it out because I still didn’t know wtf was wrong with me. I told her my story and she said “wow I want to know where she got her medical degree from.” My gyno took one look and said right away “that’s contact dermatitis” and I was very relieved. She said my symptoms were similar to herpes but that didn’t look like usual herpes. So she prescribed me a cream that I have been using for two days, and it’s almost totally healed.

My main point in this story is that contact dermatitis and herpes have VERY similar symptoms. So even if your doctor says it’s herpes, get a test done. I don’t know why a doctor would ever say to not get a test done and im not sure why I even listened to her. I think it was because I thought she must know what she’s talking about.

I would post a picture of the symptoms I had but they were all on the outside near my flaps and I don’t want that on the internet.

It’s been a wild ride!