Female Herpes

Female herpes is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States.  Don’t get the wrong idea – man can get genital herpes, too.  Millions of them have the virus.  But the infection is about twice as common in women as it is in men.  Doctors and researchers don’t entirely understand the reason for this huge disparity, but they believe the main reason is that herpes, like many other STDs, is more easily transmitted from a man to a woman than from a woman to a man, due to our differing anatomical structures.  While the reasons for the huge numbers of cases of female herpes may be in dispute, the facts aren’t.  The Center for Disease Control has spent millions of dollars and several years compiling the statistics.  Every year they update their files and websites with the latest figures, which anyone can check for themselves.  There is some good news, however – the number of women with herpes seems to be decreasing lately.

Can herpes in women be fatal?  No, but it can be passed on to a fetus, which can be fatal to the unborn baby in rare cases.  While it may not be fatal, it can certainly be unpleasant to deal with living with herpes.  Outbreaks can be quite painful distressing in some women with female herpes.  Symptoms can include fever, muscle pain, and swollen lymph nodes, along with the problems it causes in the genital areas, such as painful skin, blisters, oozing sores, vaginal discharge, painful urination, etc.  One odd thing is that many women with herpes only experience a few of these symptoms, and they’re not very troublesome, which means that they can have herpes for years before they are actually aware of it.  Other women have the exact opposite experience, and find outbreaks extremely hard to deal with.  Will there ever be a cure for female herpes?  One can only hope.  Right now it can be treated, but not cured.  Until a cure comes along, vigilance is the best protection.