February 07, 2018

075: Oral or Genital Herpes with Alexandra Harbushka

9 minutes

If you had to pick which one would you pick? [video_player type="youtube" style="1" dimensions="560x315" width="560" height="315" align="center" margin_top="0" margin_bottom="20" ipad_color="black"]aHR0cHM6Ly95b3V0dS5iZS9HVlo5SGhaTFZoUQ==[/video_player] Life With Herpes Welcome to today’s episode on Life With Herpes, as always I am thrilled that you are joining me today. Thank you and welcome. I want to invite you to join our community over on lifewithherpes.com. Let me ask you, would you prefer to have oral herpes or genital herpes? Upon first thought I would say that having genital herpes would be the worst one. It has to do with the stigma that is attached to it. The genital herpes stigma is you are a, slut, trailer trash, you slept around, you are dirty, you are a walking disease, you are a whore, you deserved to get this, you are the scarlet letter and the disgusting stigmas are far to long for me to put in this post. Then when we think of oral herpes there is no stigma that is attached other than the painful blister on your mouth. When you have an oral outbreak people feel bad for you opposed to judging you. Most of the time people contract HSV 1 or oral herpes as kids. We get it from being kissed as a baby or as a kid by our grandparents our parents or even from sharing a juice box on the playground. In other words, people don’t associate sex with oral herpes. So let’s have an open discussion about oral and genital herpes. If you had to pick, which one would you prefer? Oral or Genital?It really is a good question. When I ask myself this question I decided to answer it at different times in my life. Before I was diagnosed with HSV 1 & HSV 2 I would have said neither. Then when I was diagnosed with HSV 1 orally when I was 20 years old I was relieved that it was not genital herpes. And then being diagnosed with HSV 2 I was devastated and wished it never happened. In case you have not listened to the last episodes I talk alot about my oral outbreak. I got an outbreak on my mouth for the second time ever and it was 14 years after my initial diagnosis. I was like WTF?!?!?!? After dealing with the oral outbreak, on my wedding by the way, I realized that I would much much much rather have genital herpes than oral herpes. Mainly, nobody knows you have an outbreak. Really, it is only your business and nobody really needs to know you have an outbreak unless of course you are going to have sex. It was an interesting lesson for me to walk around with this huge outbreak and have shame and disgust meanwhile oral herpes is not associated with shame. It was really interesting. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Let me know, would you rather have oral herpes or genital herpes? And why? Keep in touch with Alexandra Harbushka www.lifewithherpes.com www.instagram.com/alexandraharbushka www.facebook.com/lifewithherpespodcast www.pinterest.com/lifewithherpes Join the community If you are ready to join a community of people who are living with herpes also then you will want to join our slack group. It is FREE and it is a great way to find the support and comfort that you are looking for. Head on over to www.lifewithherpes.com and join our community. You will receive a slack invitation as soon as you sign up. See you in there. Ways you can support the Life With Herpes show And if you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it for you, please give the Life With Herpes show a review. It is a way to pay it forward to fellow friends who are living with herpes. You can Subscribe, Rate and Review the show through your iTunes app or on the desktop. Seriously, it helps out a lot more than it is a hassle for you. You see, iTunes has an algorithm that organically promotes the show, so the more ratings and reviews the Life With Herpes Show receives then the higher it gets ranked. This is your way of paying it forward and helping someone find the show who really needs it. Oh, and you can totally use a fake name, so don’t worry about a friend finding you in the iTunes review. Talking about herpes needs to be spread as far and wide as possible. You are totally a part of this movement so THANK YOU! Subscribe, Rate and Review More Episode Resources