How To Tell Someone You Have Herpes

Kevin Anthony 0:11
Welcome to the love lab podcast a safe place to get real about sex. Whether you’re a man woman, single or couple, this is the show for you.

Céline Remy 0:20
We are your hosts Kevin Anthony, and Céline Remy and we are here to guide you to go from good to amazing in the bedroom and beyond.

Kevin Anthony 0:28
Alright everybody, welcome back to the love lab podcast. This is Episode 103. And it’s titled How to tell someone you have herpes. Okay? I don’t know why we waited so long to do an episode on this. I’ve lost count now how many stories from clients and friends that we have had dealing with this subject, and I’m always amazed at how much misinformation and outright bad information there is out there on this subject.

Kevin Anthony 1:02
You wrote a massive blog article a few years back with the help of somebody who is very in the sort of health and research field. So we got really great technical data in there. We’re going to use some of that we did some more research to get some more current stuff. And then we’re going to talk about our own friends and our own client’s experiences. It’s going to be a packed show, and you are almost definitely going to learn something you didn’t know.

Céline Remy 1:34
But first, let’s start with a little disclosure. I am a herpes carrier. I have HSV-1.

Kevin Anthony 1:41
What?

Céline Remy 1:42
I do,

Kevin Anthony 1:44
You’re just telling me this now?

Céline Remy 1:47
How about you tell our audience about yourself, Kevin, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is why we’re doing this show. to like, eradicate the stigma around herpes and the shame and the blame and the discomfort.

Kevin Anthony 2:00
Yeah, so I do have HSV-1 as well, which is oral herpes, we’re gonna get into all the different versions of it. Coming up very, very soon.

Céline Remy 2:11
All right, so now that we got this out of the way, okay, we have herpes, and you still love us?

Kevin Anthony 2:19
Well, you know, we’re in some pretty good company, because wait till we get to the stats about just how many people actually have it? Well, first, we’re gonna go into what it is. And then we’ll talk about how many people actually have it.

Céline Remy 2:31
Yeah, and we’re gonna give you also different remedies per se because there’s no like, you can cure it. But you can manage it. We’ll talk also about dealing when you have an outbreak and so many things, so it’s going to be a really good episode. But before we start into diving into all the different types of herpes because there is more than one, let’s give a big shout out to our sponsor power and mastery.

Céline Remy 2:58
If you want to join the secret club of men who are great in bed, then check out power and mastery. It is the most complete sexual mastery training for men and you can find more about it at power and mastery.com.

Kevin Anthony 3:14
Alright, let’s dive into the types. Okay, so most people have heard of type one and type two. But did you know that there are actually eight types? Eight. I don’t think most people realize that you know unless they’ve had one of those other things. And then their doctor might have said, you know, that’s actually a version of but let’s go through them.

Kevin Anthony 3:38
We’ll spend the most time on types one and two, and then we’ll go a little faster through the other six. Mm-hmm.

Céline Remy 3:44
So we’re gonna start to with a little bit of what I’ve noticed when it comes to herpes, some people put a little bit of a hierarchy or like one is better than the other. Which is really ridiculous for like, well, I have HSV-1, which stands for herpes one and it is better because it’s oral herpes

Céline Remy 4:05
and HSV-2 is genital herpes and that’s worse and somehow this kind of idea, herpes is herpes, and oral can also be transmitted it we’ll talk about more like can be given as it can also show up in the genitals. It’s not just on the mouth. So there’s a lot of things and misunderstanding around that, right.

Kevin Anthony 4:27
It’s basically the same thing and just infect certain parts of the body and whether or not you got infected in one part or another really doesn’t make a difference.

Céline Remy 4:35
So herpes one would be maybe the most known one, people usually call it as oral herpes. And what it happens is something that’s very interesting is that it does not require fluids for transmission to happen, and it is a skin to skin transmission. So one can be contagious even when one doesn’t have an outbreak. That means that you can spread the virus to others. People as well as your own body. That’s an interesting fact to know, right? It means that if you touching your lips, your nose, you can move it to a different area of your body.

Céline Remy 5:11
So keep these hands away from any outbreaks. The prodromal phase which is right before an outbreak is the most contagious phase, which makes it difficult because when you are before the outbreak, there are really no signs even though we’ll talk about maybe some subtleties, once you know more about herpes, and about your body, but you are the most contagious when there’s nothing showing. And so you need to know your symptoms well so you don’t pass it to others.

Céline Remy 5:42
And so some of the signs are often you can feel dryness in the area or a slight tingling sensation before an outbreak shows up. So everyone is different. You need to pay attention to your body and what is happening for you which means that people who are new to having herpes tend to be more, say the term dangerous, it’s kind of a weird term.

Céline Remy 6:08
But in passing it down because they don’t understand their body and their symptoms very well, then somebody who’s seasoned has been had has had it for many years, and then they know exactly the patterns.

Céline Remy 6:20
One last thing around that is when you notice symptoms, you must boost your immune system, get extra sleep, refrain from having physical contact with others. By that just like if you have oral herpes, usually it’s on the corner of your mouth. And by the way, it is different than a canker sore, which is different. Then don’t do anything related with your mouth there and don’t have anyone touch you and don’t touch yourself and then touch yourself

Kevin Anthony 6:47
or others will go much deeper into treatments and well you know, alternative treatments and mainstream medical treatments, and all that kind of stuff when we get further on in this episode. So we’re not gonna focus too much on that as we talked about the difference. types, we just want to go over what those types are. And then we’ll dive more into that kind of stuff. So, so basically, type one is oral and it can be transmitted through lots of ways which you wouldn’t even think about it.

Kevin Anthony 7:13
You sure you shared a glass with somebody or, or utensil spoon fork, something like that lip balm, lip balm. I mean, so one of the stigmas that we would love to remove definitely from the type one is that somehow you must have been doing something weird sexually with somebody, like dirty or dirty.

Kevin Anthony 7:35
Not true at all. You could have been hanging out with your friend, you’re like, Hey, can I have a sip of that whatever, you know, you got a new drink. Let me try some of that, you know, and,

Céline Remy 7:44
and as a matter of fact, I was seeing in some of the articles from doing the research that most people have been exposed by the age of five, to herpes, number one, the oral one. And so, you know, for me, I got herpes one and I remember Having had one outbreak as a teenager having like, on the side of my mouth, um, and I’ve never had it again, but now I test positive for it.

Céline Remy 8:10
And I had never kissed anyone I hadn’t had a boyfriend by then, you know. So I’m like, there is no way that this game from even being sexual. It was just from being a human.

Kevin Anthony 8:20
Exactly. And, you know, I’ve gotten them for as long as I can remember to so there’s no there was never any point of like, oh that person or anything like that. It’s just, yeah. All right. So let’s move on to number two. Tell us about

Céline Remy 8:35
number two, which is the herpes simplex, also known as genital herpes.

Kevin Anthony 8:41
All right, well, it’s herpes on your stuff. Just kidding. Alright, so since the 19, the late 1970s, the number of Americans with a genital herpes infection has increased by 30% up to 1 million GNU General herpes HSV two infections may be transmitted each year in the United States. We’re gonna go more into the

Céline Remy 9:08
status stats

Kevin Anthony 9:09
after this. But basically it spreads via skin to skin contact and is most contagious when open sores are present. Whereas transmission can still occur without having a flare-up or visible sign. That’s kind of one of the big things here is I can maybe we should have done the stats in the beginning, but logically To me, it seems better to talk about what is it first, and then the stats, but

Céline Remy 9:33
back into the stats. Yeah,

Kevin Anthony 9:35
but one of the things that that is, I guess, important. The reason why I thought about that right now at this moment, is that there doesn’t have to be any sign whatsoever that you have for transmission to occur. And this is a common thing that we hear from clients and friends, which is you gave me they’ll say to their partner, you gave me herpes and the part they’re just like, I’ve never had an outbreak in my life. I don’t know what you’re talking about…

Kevin Anthony 10:01
No, no, I know it had to have been from you, right? And then they go get tested. And sure enough, they actually do test positive because so many people do. Now, the question then always comes in, well, did you really get it from that person? Or did you also have it and not know it? Because so many people have it doesn’t have symptoms don’t even know they have.

Céline Remy 10:25
And it can be dormant for many, many years. And then life stresses situations awakens that one thing you need to really know about herpes two is that condoms do not guarantee full protection, because they only cover a small area of the skin right and they tend to move especially when you make love. While it’s annoying, painful, especially the first couple times you have breakouts from what I’ve heard. It’s not life-threatening.

Céline Remy 10:55
It’s really not a big deal and you can learn to manage it. So this whole like a scarlet letter that people get when they like to have genital herpes and go like oh my gosh, like, this is terrible. It’s gonna be the end of my sex life. It’s not the case. I also want to mention that oral herpes can show up on the genitals that you also let’s say you have oral herpes, you’re giving oral sex and it could show up on the genitals even though usually herpes two is on the genitals. herpes one is on the mouth. It can be one or the other.

Céline Remy 11:31
So again, this is why it’s important to know your body knowing like Kevin said, if you’re asymptomatic, you could still be a carrier, you can still shed and sometimes people just have the virus never have anything and sometimes it’s dormant for many years and then it shows up. Okay. So now let’s go We’ll do a quick over

Kevin Anthony 11:50
a quick overview of some of the other types of herpes that most people do not even know is herpes. So type three, also known as varicella-zoster. virus, which you may know a little bit better by the name

Céline Remy 12:04
chickenpox wasn’t had chickenpox so you’ve already had a form of herpes when you’ve contracted this virus of chickenpox, remember, it’s like when it’s really itchy. Yep, this rash.

Kevin Anthony 12:15
Everybody knows what the chickenpox is.

Céline Remy 12:19
Type 4, it’s called the Epstein Barr virus, HHV-4. It’s the one that you maybe know as the kissing disease or the mononucleosis. I survived it. But that’s fine. That’s funny that happened at summer camp for me. One year, somebody had mononucleosis, and they were like, Oh my gosh, the kissing disease and it’s the thing when you have hormones in your teenager, you hear about this, but nobody knows that it’s actually a form of herpes, right?

Kevin Anthony 12:52
So I want to just go back for one split second to type three sure because we mentioned that it was chickenpox. But another thing that we didn’t mention is that when you’re much older, and this gets reactivated, it’s called shingles. Right? And the reason why it’s important to give you all these names because you’ve heard of shingles, you know, shingles, you know, chickenpox, right.

Kevin Anthony 13:15
You know all these things, and you don’t associate them with being a form of herpes. And so part of them, taking the stigma away, is to get everybody to realize that these are all the same things. And most people have had at least one version of one of these things.

Céline Remy 13:32
Absolutely. And it’s not the end of the world when somebody’s got like, shingles may not look good. And you’re like, Okay, well, good luck with that, right? You don’t like to think they’re horrible persons?

Kevin Anthony 13:41
Well, and no, right? Because it also isn’t associated in any way with sex. So the problem and where a lot of the stigma comes from is that you had sex with somebody who’s dirty, but nobody says that when like, you know, a 70-year-old woman, you know, get shingles like, people like oh, You have shingles. Okay? You know, nobody thinks about that when a child gets chickenpox In fact, it’s like, hey, Johnny down the streets got chickenpox, so send all your kids over there.

Kevin Anthony 14:10
So you can all get it. Because actually, if you get that virus, when you’re an adult, it’s much more dangerous than if you get it with your kids. So it’s actually better to have it when you’re a kid. But you probably all know that because you’ve probably all had it already.

Céline Remy 14:24
So let’s go, I want to finish our herpes so that we all have that we have the type five, I’m going to go through the word here cytomegalovirus. It’s a strain of herpes, that is a common one and it doesn’t cause any symptoms in most healthy people. But if you have a compromised immune system, and that’s the key, it’s always a compromised immune system. We’ll go back to that later. It can lead to severe complications, but again, that’s another form of herpes type five.

Céline Remy 14:52
Now there’s types six and seven. They called herpes virus six and seven, how fancy right and these trends usually A cure in childhood and cause roseola in Fenton. It’s that mild infection that creates high fever and the rash. So a lot of infants have had that too. And then the last type of are herpes, because they are eight types are the type eight.

Céline Remy 15:16
And this one is called capos sarcoma, and it’s associated with the herpes virus HHV-8, and that is the one that this train of the virus can lead to cancer, where patches of abnormal tissue grow under the skin and in the lining of the mouth and nose, the throat and lymph nodes or other organs. So again, like this is like a more severe but that’s a form of herpes to add a start, so you’ve got a type of herpes. So why would we demonize two of them and be okay with the six ever? right?

Kevin Anthony 15:52
Exactly. That’s the point of all of this.

Kevin Anthony 15:57
Okay, so now you understand Different types and that there are many different types and that you have most likely had at least one, maybe two, possibly even three different types of this. Let’s talk about just how prevalent This is. So first I went to the CDC found some good stats there. Then I also found a site called jest herpes calm, grab some stats from there. So how common is oral herpes the HSV one. Okay, so, roughly and it depends where you get the stats from but 50 to 80% of Americans have this

Céline Remy 16:40
The biggest club in the world.

Kevin Anthony 16:42
Exactly.

Kevin Anthony 16:45
Yep, this one says 50 to 80. What I’ve seen in previous research is most people will quote the 80 Yes, absolutely. 80% number and then about 50% of new genital herpes. actions and women are actually caused by oral herpes. So that’s somebody that has oral herpes giving oral sex to somebody and then transmitting it that way.

Kevin Anthony 17:09
So we think about that 80% of people in America and I’m willing to bet that in other countries, it’s at least that high, maybe even higher.

Céline Remy 17:20
What’s interesting is that they’ve actually stopped testing for herpes. When you go do your STI s, for sexually transmitted infections, unless you’re specifically asked to have a full panel that will include herpes, they don’t do it. Yeah. You know why? because pretty much everyone has it. Yeah. That’s actually

Kevin Anthony 17:41
their reasoning for not testing. They say we don’t test for it because everybody does positive. So what’s the point? Right,

Céline Remy 17:48
and what they’re saying they will test if you have a rash or something that shows up just because so then you know, that’s not something different, you know, but what they say is, well, so many people are asymptomatic. Anyway. And then it creates more trauma to have to deal with this stigma of knowing your carrier, which I’m like is not a good reason. In my opinion. that’s a BS excuse. Absolutely. But that’s some of the reasons.

Céline Remy 18:13
So unless you have specifically asked to be tested for herpes, you may not know and you may be a carrier, you may have been for many years without knowing it. So when you go get an STI, which we’ll talk more in detail again later, it’s important to know what’s going on in your body because then you can’t blame your partner because you might already have been a carrier.

Kevin Anthony 18:36
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s talk about type two. Now. This particular stat comes from the website I mentioned above the just, but I also confirmed the stats on the CDC website as well. So they say about one out of six people in the United States has genital herpes the genital version.

Kevin Anthony 19:03
So this article was actually written in 2018. So numbers may have changed a little bit, but basically that’s about 55 million people. 55 million people yet so it’s a pretty big club.

Céline Remy 19:15
It is so really not a big deal. But

Kevin Anthony 19:18
here is the big kicker of a stat 87 to 90% of people with genital herpes don’t know they have it. That bears repeating. Yes. 87 to 98% of the people who have genital herpes do not know they have it.

Céline Remy 19:41
That’s crazy.

Kevin Anthony 19:42
so crazy. So we said there are 55 million people that have it according to these numbers. That means 48 million of them don’t know they have it.

Céline Remy 19:49
Wow. That’s huge. So then they blissfully going on around in their life. Maybe shaming others, not knowing that they too have it.

Kevin Anthony 20:02
Right, so they say that this is the second most prevalent STD after HPV. We’re not gonna touch HPV now, right? We need to do a whole episode on that too. That’s a whole can of worms. It isn’t can fucking word. Anyway. In my opinion, I think it’s the most prevalent yesterday.

Céline Remy 20:27
Yes, absolutely. And so knowing that, I mean, like, again, we hear all about like, making this more normal. opening up a conversation. I’m realizing that a lot of people are holding back disclosing the information because they’re thinking their friends won’t accept them, their partner will not.

Céline Remy 20:45
And once you know you carry this weight and once you realize that you’re just not like you’re one in a not one in a million. You’re part of millions of people having this like, it’s not a big deal.

Kevin Anthony 20:57
Okay, I got one more step for y’all. This one is probably also gonna blow your mind. And I’ll tell you what I’ll tell you after I read the stat why I think it might blow your mind. How many men versus women have genital herpes? So according to this is again coming from just herpes calm. About 23.5% of women have genital herpes caused by HSV two, and about 11.5% of men have genital herpes. Now, here’s the reason why I bring this up.

Kevin Anthony 21:32
And there’s actually a good explanation for this, which I’ll give you in just a moment. The reason why I thought this was important to bring up is not to shame women in any way, shape, or form. But the majority of the stories of the cases that we hear are the women saying to the man, you gave me herpes, you must have

Céline Remy 21:55
cheated.

Kevin Anthony 21:56
I know three people just off the top of My head who have said, he gave it to me. Mm-hmm. Now knowing how many people have it and don’t know they have it and the fact that it can lie dormant for very many years. Yes, he may have given it to you. And it’s entirely possible that you already had it didn’t know you had it. And now for whatever reason, whatever is happening in your life, it’s actually starting to come out, flare-up, whatever it is.

Kevin Anthony 22:28
So, okay, why do we see a higher percentage of women than men, right? Because men and women are both having sex together, you would expect fairly similar results. And it’s just because the female genitals are more susceptible to infection due to their exposed soft tissue.

Kevin Anthony 22:47
That’s the only reason why. So it’s not like women are dirtier than men or anything like that. But you do see a higher infection rate in women, which means that they would then be technically most Likely passing that on at a higher rate to since they’re simply more of them with it.

Kevin Anthony 23:06
So, you know, one of the things that we always say when it because, you know, clients come to us and they are literally like mortified, terrified, just be they don’t know what to do they look at their partner like they just gave them a death sentence. I mean it really sometimes it really gets that bad. And so it’s important to understand how this works and what these numbers are.

Kevin Anthony 23:33
And one of our pieces of advice always is like, okay, have you ever been tested? They always say no. Okay, well, then you don’t know if you had it or not already, you know, has he ever been tested? Most times they say no, also,

Céline Remy 23:48
Well, okay, well, then we can’t really lay blame here. If neither of you has been tested. Neither of you had symptoms before. Now you suddenly have symptoms you both get tested in your body. Have it, there’s no way to know who gave it to who. Absolutely. And here’s the thing, when you engage in sexual activities, you always are at risk to have something.

Céline Remy 24:12
But anytime you interact with another human being it’s part it’s called being part of being human. And I think the benefits way outweigh the risks, in my opinion, but you also got to play smart. So we are going to talk to you about how long it takes to be detected things to do symptoms. But before that, we’d like to invite you to our Platinum program. Are you a committed couple who is stuck in a rut and just going through the daily motions instead of connecting the way you used to?

Céline Remy 24:45
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Kevin Anthony 25:18
Alright, so we were just talking about a sort of, you know, the stats of who has it, who doesn’t have it? How many people know they have it versus don’t know they have it. Another interesting thing that sometimes comes up when people come to us with this issue is they have sex with somebody. They have a breakout the next day or two days later, and they instantly go I knew it You gave it to me, right? Okay, we needed we need to understand incubation periods here.

Céline Remy 25:52
So the incubation periods for herpes is about two to 12 days, so it’s pretty short. What that means that the best time to get tested for the hurt virus if you haven’t had any, like an initial outbreak is after 12 days after you’ve been exposed. If you worried that you’ve been exposed, then wait 12 days and go get a test. In general, it takes anywhere from four to seven days for the herpes symptoms to appear.

Céline Remy 26:19
And so both genital and oral herpes outbreaks have similar symptoms. So technically, it won’t be like you have sex with somebody, and the next day you have something it doesn’t happen like this.

Kevin Anthony 26:30
And that’s why it was so important to put this piece in here because we have literally heard that from people like, boom, oh, we had sex and then boom, and it’s like, this is most likely one of those cases where you already had it. Probably what happened is you felt some sort of guilt about having sex with this person that you just met or whatever it is, and you stress yourself out and caused an outbreak of something you already had, most likely and so it’s imminent.

Kevin Anthony 27:00
Understand that. The other thing is, is that, you know if you have unprotected sex with somebody, and then like three days later it comes out they have herpes and now you’re freaking out about it you run straight to get a test well, don’t really if the results might come back negative you go, great. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything because you really have to wait like, I would say if you think you’ve been infected, wait a solid two weeks, and then go get tested.

Céline Remy 27:28
Absolutely. So I want to talk about different treatments and we’re going to give you different things that you can do. And when I say that, I wanted to, I want to say one thing like okay, I want to talk about when herpes tends to show up before I give you the treatments. Okay, what are things that exacerbate herpes? When you have severe stress is one thing when you have exposure to cold weather or sunlight that can also create an outage. break this thing after tooth extraction. Interestingly enough, I think it’s because, you know, if you’ve ever had a tooth extraction, you know how much stress it causes on your body, right?

Céline Remy 28:10
So again, I think it’s more stress-related than anything else. If you have hormones fluctuations such as pregnancy, menstruation, now see like maybe menopause, too, when your hormones go all the way out like this, if you have a fever, and if you have other infections in the body that are present, so again, it’s about the terrain, it’s about your body. If your body is stressed out, is weaker, there is a chance for herpes to flare up more often.

Céline Remy 28:39
Okay, now, let’s look at treatments. Let’s start with self-care treatments. And the self-care treatment is more something that you do not really when you have the outbreaks, but kind of in between to keep the immune system strong and things like that. So they are antiviral herbs like the red marine algae, Lomatium, and olive leaf that you can take, I’ve done those and they worked really well. And then you want to think about boosting your immune system with things like vitamin D, zinc, and lysine. That’s for the self-care, you could still use that too when you have an outbreak.

Céline Remy 29:19
But you can use this as the like a 3 months cure per se like not that it’s gonna make it disappear once herpes virus is in your blood, it usually stays in your body forever, even though there are some cases but medical mainstream will say you can get rid of it.

Kevin Anthony 29:36
Okay? They say it’s completely incurable. You know, I also want to say with the self-care stuff, there are a lot of natural things that you can use that actually work, in my opinion, better than the medications. Now, of course, doctors are never going to tell you that. But there are a lot of things that you can do a lot of, for instance, numerous essential oils that have very strict antiviral properties to them. Hmm.

Kevin Anthony 30:03
So that’s, that’s a good thing, then, you know, some of this stuff is preventative as well, right. So keep your immune system strong. If you keep your immune system strong, then you’re not going to have any outbreaks. So that’s the first thing. As you mentioned, vitamin D, vitamin C, which is not actually on the list here sync lysine is a big one with a lot of people don’t know is that the virus actually needs arginine.

Kevin Anthony 30:30
Arginine is found in certain foods like nuts. There’s more than just nuts like I’m not remembering off the top my head but there’s a bunch of foods that have sort of hiding arginine content. So you want to avoid those things. So on for like a maintenance kind of a thing. Just be careful of how much food you eat that has a ton of Argentine in it. When you have an outbreak. Try to avoid those foods altogether. And then for maintenance, lysine actually counteracts that. So foods that are high in lysine, these are all just amino acids is all they are.

Kevin Anthony 31:08
So foods that are high and lysine, there’s a bunch of those things tend to be like meat, dairy, eggs, I think even avocado, things like that, then they’re relatively high in lysine. So you want to eat more of those. And then especially when you have an outbreak, focus on eating more of those things. Then the other stuff, as I said, there’s a whole bunch of essential oils. There are whole products out there made that are just combinations of essential oils.

Kevin Anthony 31:36
There’s a whole bunch of other things. I don’t want to actually go too deep into them because we’ll probably get in trouble for saying them. I want to mention they work

Céline Remy 31:46
that it’s also a message from your body that you probably are too stressed out that something’s going on that you need to slow down. And I’m going to use Kevin as an example before we give you the rest of the treatments because you used to have way more flareups in your previous relationship, and in our relationship, I think it happened once more than half years, maybe twice, maybe twice.

Céline Remy 32:10
But the difference is that your previous relationship was pretty stressful.

Kevin Anthony 32:15
That is correct.

Céline Remy 32:16
And my theory is really that the more out of balance whether it’s emotionally stressful or physical stress, the more the weaker you become, and the more the body can flare up with things like that.

Kevin Anthony 32:30
So we call stress the silent killer creates all kinds of problems. And the biggest thing is, is it weakens your immune system.

Céline Remy 32:38
Some people choose to do the medical care for the treatments, really, the options are like antiviral medications. I’m not a big proponent of this. Some people just do it because they’re just too afraid of having a flare-up. Amen. It’s your body. You do what you want, but know that all these medications have side effects. They come with our stuff.

Kevin Anthony 32:59
Yeah. And you know, here’s what I would say about that there are a couple of different cons, there’s medication you can take when you have a flare-up. And there’s medication you can take to prevent you from having one I’m

Céline Remy 33:10
having a breakout, yes. So,

Kevin Anthony 33:13
but through my own personal experience of using multiple different things, I can honestly say that the natural stuff works better, actually works better than the medication but here is a place where medication sometimes is necessary. I have seen some people that have constant constant flare-ups just over and over again. And for those types of people, the medication that basically prevents the flare-ups gives them their life back.

Céline Remy 33:49
Yes.

Kevin Anthony 33:50
Now, honestly, what they really need to do is get their body healthy, and get their body in balance. And then those flaps will go away. But in the meantime, while they’re working on some of the people that have really continue or really intense flare-ups, the medication can be very helpful in those situations.

Céline Remy 34:09
So you probably have heard of them. I’m not gonna go into details that are going to give you the name, Acyclovir is a very popular one and then there’s the Famciclovir and Valacyclovir. So they all kind of the same family here. That’s something you get through your doctor. I want to briefly touch on integrative medicine.

Céline Remy 34:29
To add a few things. Some people have had really good results with intravenous ozone therapy, high dose intravenous vitamin C, and a high dose of Colloidal Silver. These are controversial. And at the same time, they work very well some you know, in the United States, they controversial in other countries, they like the things that people do and they work and they’re supported. So you have to do your own research. But these things can happen.

Kevin Anthony 34:55
Okay, so yes, they are considered controversial here in the US and I personally know multiple people who have used these treatments successfully.

Céline Remy 35:03
I’ve known of one person who said they got rid of it. And that’s why I said mainstream media said you don’t,  but one person did the intravenous treatment and they said they don’t have the virus in the blood again. So

Kevin Anthony 35:15
what that means is the level is so low, it’s not detectable in the test. Does it mean it’s 100%? Gone? I don’t know. We don’t know. Yeah, but they literally were able to reduce it to a level that is not detectable by the test.

Céline Remy 35:28
So this should give you hope, a lot of different options. Make sure you listen again to this to the different things so that you can make a list and

Kevin Anthony 35:36
then and so take these ideas. So there’s intravenous ozone therapy. I’ll just say them one more time. Again, there’s high dose intravenous vitamin C and high dose Colloidal Silver. Actually, there is an intravenous Colloidal Silver treatment as well. Just go research them on your own.

Kevin Anthony 35:53
We’re not really gonna tell me more about that. But just know that I personally know multiple people who’ve done several of them. The different rounds Yes, and have had great success with it. So just go research it for yourself if you’re interested.

Céline Remy 36:07
I want to quickly talk about preventing the spread of herpes. Some of the ways, first, how do you prevent it is to understand how it spreads, right? So mostly for HCC, HSV. One usually through kissing someone on the mouth sharing utensils or cup, lip balm, performing oral sex, these are activities that can transmit the virus. If it, if it’s HSV, two oral sex, vaginal sex, and anal sex, will transmit it or are a big potential.

Céline Remy 36:38
So now that you understand that these are the things that spread the virus when you want to start to prevent it, then you need to avoid these activities for a little while. Right? Not forever, but just when you have an outbreak and understand that once the outbreak is out. The worst is already behind. I mean it sucks especially if it’s on your face because It’s on your face and everybody can see it. But you actually were more contagious before the flare before it came out, right?

Céline Remy 37:07
And so you just know, you have to wait 10 to 14 days until it totally disappears and heals and then you can go back to your regular activities of oral sex and kiss and drinking during drinks and all of this with other people. I mean, it’s not a big deal, a couple of weeks break. And then I know you had different things you wanted to say like how to avoid exposure want to like other things to do, really?

Kevin Anthony 37:29
Okay, so here’s the thing. Again, we hear these stories from clients and from personal friends. And then we just heard another one like, what a week ago. I mean, it happens pretty regularly. And here’s the thing, the most recent one that we heard, could have absolutely been prevented if they just took a couple of basic steps.

Kevin Anthony 37:51
And so I thought, you know, pretty important to share those right? Because Yeah, it’s great to know what it is and to recognize it and to know how to treat it but wouldn’t Great if you never got it to begin with? I think so.

Céline Remy 38:04
Yeah. But since you know, 80% of people have it. That’s why we took so much time telling you about how to deal with and once you have it, and that’s for the 20% of you who don’t have it, we’re going to give you these few tips, two minutes off for

Kevin Anthony 38:16
you. Or maybe you have one but not the other. And you’d like to not have both.

Céline Remy 38:21
Some people say that when you have one you more resistant to having the other one. And at the same time, I know plenty of people who’ve got both. So it’s not it’s kind of a myth to say, one I’m like, I’m like protected forever. So just be aware.

Kevin Anthony 38:35
So here’s the thing, in the majority of cases that come our way that we hear of the people meet somebody, they never have the conversation about safe sex,

Céline Remy 38:47
we have a whole episode on how to have safe sex. So go back to this episode, if you don’t know how to make it work,

Kevin Anthony 38:53
right. And that conversation isn’t just like, oh, what birth control do we use or what STD prevention it’s literally going over your history. Here’s what I have or what I had, here’s what I’ve done. Here’s what I do. We’re here, my protocols, all of that stuff. So basically, it’s like playing Russian roulette because you have no idea what the person’s history is. If you never have that conversation,

Céline Remy 39:17
that conversation happens before B four, you have sex Hello before you even touch each other’s genitals. I actually say sometimes have it before even start kissing and exchanging fluids have that at the beginning, understand each other is it worth taking a chance and a risk with that person?

Kevin Anthony 39:34
Exactly. The next is, you know, a lot of times if you have that conversation, and most people have never been tested, then simply ask them to get tested. It’s not a big deal like most cities will have their county health department or whatever where you can go for a super low cost, and get this test done. You can specifically request to be tested.

Kevin Anthony 40:00
For herpes, along with all the other things, it’s really like, honestly, I know so many people that do like the online dating stuff, you know, and they’re constantly dating and having random casual sex with different people. They call themselves monogamous. But you know, I’m like, wow, how many people have you had sex within the last year? They don’t have this conversation with anybody.

Kevin Anthony 40:22
Half the time they don’t even use condoms or practice safe sex. And they think, wow, I mean, no big deal, right? I mean, it’s not like I’m one of those weird poly swinger people kind of thing, but honestly, their behavior is actually more dangerous.

Céline Remy 40:35
And I want to say the term they always use unclean. By the way, stop associating cleanliness with STI is because it’s not that you dirty if you have something, are you clean? If you don’t have anything? It’s more about, like, do you know what’s going on? You know, it’s just is it clear, not clean? That’s a very important distinction.

Kevin Anthony 40:55
And then the last thing is, okay, so we covered that condoms. Don’t 100% prevent you from getting herpes, that is absolutely true that they can reduce the possibility that you get it. So it’s like you meet somebody new, have a conversation. If you don’t like the answers you’re getting in the conversation or you’re not sure what the answers are, then simply go get tested.

Kevin Anthony 41:20
And just use some basic, you know, protection, condoms, male condoms, female condoms, whatever it is, maybe not engage in oral sex just yet, right? Like, just those simple protocols alone would have prevented at least the last three cases of people that told me that they just got herpes,

Céline Remy 41:42
and then stop having sex in the dark, like turn on the light and look at each other’s genitalia is if there’s anything suspect anything, or if you feel slightly itchy. I mean, if Kevin and I are married, and it’s like, well, whatever I’ve got, you’ve got whatever he’s got, I’ve got but it’s like if I have something that feels slightly off or weird, he’s the first person to know. And we like to take an informed decision. Should we have penetration? Should we use a condom?

Céline Remy 42:05
Should we take a break? And so if you see a little red pimple has a little rash or feel itchy or something’s different or smell is different. I had that with another lover. It was this smell that was different. Listen to your intuition. It’s okay to just say, you know what, I’m not quite sure that it’s totally safe right now. Let’s connect in different ways. But look at each other’s genitals, like take a visual thing, especially at the beginning.

Kevin Anthony 42:31
Yeah, that’s a good one. And I’m often surprised how many people don’t actually look.

Céline Remy 42:39
Yeah.

Kevin Anthony 42:40
Especially when they’re not even using protection. Yeah, stick that in blindly. Like, why

Kevin Anthony 42:47
What, you don’t look at it first?

Céline Remy 42:49
You don’t smell it, taste it, feel it, look at it. I mean, come on. Like if you do that, then then you can see a lot of things that are different. And then let’s be real when you are with a new partner. Even if you don’t like condoms, even if like, the lovemaking isn’t as great with condoms, because you can’t feel the same or blah, blah, blah, whatever excuse you’re using.

Céline Remy 43:08
For the first few months or weeks at least until you’ve decided to be like, monogamous, or like really having all the rules laid out on how you gonna play if you are in an open relationship and know your safe sex, just be safe and use condoms for a little bit of time until you have all your test results and know the behavior of the other person.

Céline Remy 43:29
Because you know, what, two months of using condoms is a really small price to pay than having to deal with having herpes that you didn’t have then and then having it for the rest of your life.

Kevin Anthony 43:42
You know, just basic precautions go a long way.

Kevin Anthony 43:49
Alright, and you know, this episode has got a long way.

Céline Remy 43:55
I want to say remember, you’ve got herpes. It’s not a big deal to be upfront, be honest, love yourself, take that good care of your health, and take breaks when there are not outbreaks and it’s okay. You can still have sex, you are still beautiful, you are still sexy, you can still have pleasure, you are worthy of it all.

Céline Remy 44:13
And if somebody walks away, they just were not for you to be strong and no, that has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with who they are. So love yourself fully purpose or no harpist?

Kevin Anthony 44:28
Absolutely. All right. We did our best to cram as much as we could into this. There are tons of resources out there. If you have more questions. Of course, you can ask us. You can also go and do more research. There’s tons of it out there.

Kevin Anthony 44:41
All right, everybody. That’s all the time we have for this episode. And we will see you next week. We hope you liked this episode of the love lab podcast. If you enjoy this show, subscribe. leave us a review and share it with your friends

Céline Remy 44:58
and for more free exclusive content join us in the passion vault at selling remi.com forward slash vault. That’s CELINEREMY.com/vault. Thanks for listening, and remember, you’re amazing