hey y'all this is Dr Tasha and I'm back with Dr Tasha after dark this episode is truly a cliffhanger because we are so traumatized in our community by so many different stigmas and the only thing that's going to fix that is real information that you can truly understand I'm going in today on herpes genital herpes I'm going in grab a pen grab a glass of wine and be ready cuz I'm about to tell some truths that a lot of people haven't told you [Music] hey this is Dr Tasha and I'm back Dr Tasha after dark we gonna get it popping so from what I'm doing in the office what I'm hearing in the office and what I hear in the comments when I post stuff is we need to real deal we need to download we need to tea on this herpes thing okay so it's crazy because a lot of people want to know about it right but a lot of people don't want to talk about it and it's really because of the stigma and you say what the hell is a stigma stigma is what we have attached to herpes um because of what we've heard over the years which is absolute garbage all right it's garbage it's it ain't what herpes actually is so we going to bust down the nitty-gritty of what herpes actually is y'all can literally take notes on this okay y'all can sit at the table and debate somebody with this cuz it's about to be on and popping all right so what is herpes so when we talk about Herpes we have two different types of herpes it's called herpes simplex virus or HSV and we have a one and we have a two honestly at my office I don't even check for one I I don't even check for it why because 5-year-olds have one seven year olds have one you get it at the daycare when one kid put a toy in the mouth the other kid put a toy in the mouth blah blah blah blah blah that's fever blister say cold Source I ain't even pressed on that like everybody is going to come back positive for herpes one okay so you'll be calling people back to the office and I call people back to my office to have a herpes discussion so I would be calling every person solitary person back to be like hey you got it it ain't that big of a deal blah blah blah blah blah I got to do that with herpes 2 damn near so I'm not B to do it with herpes one it's not that huge of a deal and we'll get back to herpes one and oral six and bl we'll talk about that since we say oh it's fever Bliss well can I get it honey that's further down in the conversation but stay tuned okay so when we are thinking about Herpes or genital herpes or sexually transmitted herpes we're thinking about hsv2 that's mostly what we're talking about okay so when I check I'm checking for hsv2 Point Blank period now this is a complicated topic why because it's not as um straight forward as you would think it's just not so herpes simplex virus it is a virus let me explain first of all how a virus Dam works all right now when something has been introduced to your body like you know and and I'll explain how it gets introduced but let me just explain how all viruses work when something gets introduced into your body your body takes it up like o what's that when it's a virus your body starts to produce antibodies that means it starts to produce things in your body to fight the virus and how does that happen it gets introduced to your body your immune system runs and says what's that how you doing you new here that's what's up you cute and it starts to produce an bodies to be like oh just in case I don't like you yeah we already we already got security looking at you we already got Security on you okay it and just to make it you know visable so you can kind of understand it your immune system has six weeks to develop all the security guards is going to develop okay once that six weeks is up then your immune system says and this is our security team what's up you want to fight you want to fight do you nine times out of 10 that virus it's like no I'm good but the security team stays there the security team stays on watch for the remainder of your life okay that is how viruses work with your immune system Point Blank period so when the people are like oh I don't have that virus no more girl you do and you always will and that's beautiful that's for your protection okay that is beautiful that is the body that is how God works that's the immune system you don't believe in God I don't want to squabble in the comments you ain't got to I'm just telling you from my perspective okay so at the end of the day um that is how viruses work Point Blank period now let's get back to herpes and let's get to some brass TXS of it herpes is not due to intercourse you ain't get it from that herpes is due to contact so I have in my practice I have virgins who have herpes I have strippers who don't herpes is not about being dirty it is not about being a hoe it is not about being nasty it is not about being loose it is not about being outside it is an occupational hazard what does that mean that means at some point an electrician going to get an electric shop at some point a surgeon's going to get cut at some point a nurse is going to get spit on um it's just it's an occupational hazard so if you're somebody who is a sexual being you don't even have to be having sexual intercourse but if your genitals are touching somebody else's genitals then it is a possibility that you going to pick up that occupational hazard Point Blank period what does that mean so let's say you SPO spooning with somebody let's say you're a female okay or even if you're a male I really don't care what your gender is or what your how you identify I don't care it ain't my business right so let's say you are spooning with another individual all right their bily fluids touches your body and they happen to be having an outbreak or they happen to be herpes positive wherever they touch because it's a skin thing and it goes and it lives in the nerves of your skin so wherever that bodily fluid touches your body that is where you get infected now let me tell you why that's important if you can think about something think about the body having just Stripes all down you know how you have sheets with stri SH you know how you have sheets I got all hype you know how you have sheets with stripes right okay so imagine your body being like that you just have sheets with but every stripe is a nerve so you got C1 C2 C3 C4 so you got C's then you got the T then you got the L's then you got the s's so CT LS whatever that's not important but the point is is that every stripe is a nerve so wherever you wherever that fluid hits you that's the nerve that it lives in it lives in that nerve so theoretically wherever you have your outbreak that's where it's going to be the whole time so people be like Oh no I got a outbreak over here then I got an outbreak over here then I got to out no your outbreak is going to be where it lands unless you done got a whole bunch of different nerves so you had sex with one person he hit that one nerve you had sex with somebody else bam you got Exposed on another nerve then it could be possible that you could have it in multiple different places but for all intents and purposes wherever you were in infected that is where you're going to have your outbreak and outbreak is going to be the same place every time and we'll talk about that a little bit further okay so again herpes is not about intercourse it is about contact you heard me see be like I a't had sex with this person I I ain't even had sex with them it doesn't matter this is why some people will have outbreaks on the thigh they have outbreaks on their butt they may even have an outbreak on their lower back it is wherever that fluid touched you okay now let's talk about the brass taxs of herpes and what makes it so complicated so what makes herpes more complicated than anything is that 90% of doctors choose not to and I can't say choose as if it's malicious cuz it's not malicious but 90% of doctors just don't check for it they just don't you literally have to request and say hey can you add herpes to my testing now in my office you don't 8 to 80 or crazy we testing you you have to say to me I don't want to be tested um but that's not every practice right so a lot of doctor's offices do not check for it why because when you come back and your herpes positive I bring you in for this exact discussion the discussion you guys are getting now is a discussion you're getting from but it's a discussion that my patients come in and get once they've tested positive for herpes okay so a lot of doctors don't have the time they don't have the desire and they're like so what it's not going to cause them any problems it's Skin Deep it's Skin Deep it's not going to hurt them so I'm not going to go testing it's going to cause a bunch of social problems they're going to be pissed at their partner I'm not being bothered um I don't feel that way I feel that if you come to me and you say test me for everything you want to know about everything not just the stuff I want to talk about you want to know about everything so that's what test for so let's talk about how African-American women and the reason that it's like why don't you have the statistics for white women because a lot of times they don't report these statistics okay I give you what I got and I give you who is important to who I see African American women over the age of 40 y'all ready for this over the age of 40 80% are positive for herpes and that is of the women who go to the doctor and that is of the doctors who actually check it's probably actually High okay now so when y'all sitting at the dining room table with me with Auntie big auntie and my mom and all of them girl they got it don't even worry about it they got it they got it everybody scared to talk about it and maybe they don't even know because they haven't been tested but nine times out of 10 they got it now okay so so what so what you know you say okay well all these people have herpes but where they get it from where you think they got it from now the problem is that people don't understand herpes so let's talk a little bit bit more when it comes to herpes no you're not going to give it to every person you have sex with the transmission rate of herpes if you're not having an outbreak is only 5% 1 2 3 4 5 it's 5% if you are having an outbreak the transmission rate is still only 15% so it's not like it's 100% like garia chyia like I had sex with you you got chyia now I got chyia herpes is not like that okay so don't feel like oh every time I have sex with somebody they going to get herpes and then they going to be talking about me no okay and again A lot of people are not tested for herpes so who's to say that who you having sex with don't already have herpes and we're going to get into that a little bit deeper as well so the stigma with herpes is that you feel like you're dirty or you feel like you a hoe or you feel like you know you have something that nobody in the world has and you know they're going to be able to single you out because you're going to give them herpes every time no that is not how that works that is not how they works most people don't even know they have it the people who do have it your transmission rate is low okay and again it ain't got nothing to do with being um it has nothing to do with being dirty or poor or baby because I got blue BL Blue Bloods from Ivy League schools who've never had sex CU they're slated to marry this other blue blood and they got it okay and my patients who down at Magic City allore um onx and all the other places they don't it is what it is okay so don't let it rule you as a person to make you feel like you less than or you're beneath or you have to tolerate something in your relationship because nobody else will have you child please don't even get into all that okay so we talked about what herpes actually is and I want to touch on right quick the people who say well I did this diet and I did that diet and I did the third diet I took these supplements and now my herpes is negative no sis or bro it ain't and let me tell you why your tests are coming back negative okay so a test is just that it is a test it is developed by a human the machine is a machine nothing is perfect right so let's say you have this amount of let's say this is the container this is the test container this is your blood let's say that the test might pick up Herpes when it's this close to the top right but let's say you've changed your diet you've done this you've done it so you're decreasing your inflammation you're beefing up your immune system you're resting you're taking your vitamins you're getting your body and as healthi as of State as you possibly can right so what it's doing is it's controlling the virus all it does is it controls your security team so it's controlling it so now instead of you having this much virus it's controlled it and it's pushed it down to this much but understand your immune system is tattooed sweetie it's there it's never going anywhere but now you take the test and so because you're here instead of here the test reads is negative so it's not that it's not there it's just that it didn't pick it up in the spirit of if you can kind of equate it to when we're talking about HIV sometimes we come back and we'll say oh she's undetectable it does not mean she does not have HIV it means she's undetectable so the test is no longer the virus is so low that the test is no longer the protecting it but she still has HIV does that make sense so it's not that it's gone it's not that you beat it it's not that you got over it you did not you started Living a lifestyle or you or whatever it is you started doing to ramp up or beef up your immune system so that it could suppress the virus and now it's not being picked up on a test it's great for your ego it's great to make you feel good but at the end of the day it's still there okay go back to eat in the foolishness that you were eating go back to not exercising go back to not resting go back to not taking your supplements come off of whatever diet you picked up and trust me that next year it will be seen at your doctor's office okay so don't get so caught up on the test and what the test say and okay either you have it or you don't and if it picks up at one point you have it it's never well it picked up and I had it but I don't have it no more that's not a thing don't even go no way saying that cuz they going to be like oh she crazy so don't do that because it's not a thing you can just say it picked up at one point it's now it's not picking up it's now undetectable okay but I realize that the virus still lives in my body it's just undetectable can you still transmit it absolutely okay um that's the difference in HIV HIV you know generally you're not going to be able to transmit it if it's undetectable but herpes generally you will but again like I said even if it is detectable your transmission rate is what sis 5% so we ain't F to worry about that okay and we going to talk about some other stuff in the meantime and in between time now medically let's talk about what it actually means and I'm going to tell you guys a little story on why I am obsessed with making sure everybody gets tested for herpes I'm going to tell you why when I first came out of residency um I lived in North Carolina I moved to North Carolina um and I thought it was going to be the move child somebody ain't tell me I wasn't moving to Charlotte I was moving to Greensboro honey that was the middle of the Bible Belt child they had I'm sure they had KKK meetings and all that so whatever anyway the point is is that I worked for I worked at a practice and it was a black female on practice again I thought I was you know I'm I'm with another sister and you know I'm going learn and all this kind of stuff and so I had this patient and everybody was very afraid of her husband because he was from the north I'm from the north but you know they say we real abrasive in the north you know they say we real all up in your face he was was the braive as hell apparently you know he was quadrip he was paraplegic um and he was on a walker and he had had some whatever activity he had been shot whatever but he was very get in here get like very but he didn't mean any harm he was just his tone was just offputting but he didn't mean any harm so everybody was kind of afraid of of them at the practice but I understood them so I saw them for their entire um their entire uh pregnancy situation so again I'm new to the practice so and it's like okay OB Labs you know whatever everything is already set as a standard in the computer you just check what you want the patient to have you know never really thought much about it you know the labs that I did get I just made sure they were normal or whatever the case may be so fast forward to delivery day they call me Doc patient at the hospital she 8 centimeters come on now if you know me if you know me from my OB days baby I a got so many damn parking ticket I mean driving tickets speeding tickets I done damn near have been suspended and wasn't able to drive in the city of Atlanta had to talk to the judge about you know cuz I'm going to speed I'm going to get there okay and the same with this I was on two wheels you know getting to the hospital got to the hospital delivered the baby had an uneventful delivery probably about maybe two weeks later I'm at the hospital doing another delivery I see them you know downstairs in the hospital I'm like what y'all doing everything okay I'm thinking something's wrong with her I'm like what is happening like y'all good good and this is back in 0 08 right I'm like y'all good and they you know start crying a little bit and said something was wrong with the baby I'm like what's going on with the baby and they were like you know baby started peeing blood and they brought the baby back to the hospital and the baby was just getting progressively sicker and sicker and sicker and over the next couple of days they did a spinal tap on the baby and you know they found that the baby has something called herpes and cytis and essentially the baby developed multisystems failure and died and my heart was absolutely broken and so I went to Peds and I talked to the pediatrician or the neonatologist and I'm like talk to me about Herpes and sephtis how did we get here and the reason we actually got there is because nobody it wasn't a standard to check and it's still not a standard to check women for herpes who were pregnant and so this lady was her she had herpes and nobody had ever checked and while she was in labor the virus was going up the baby's nose because that's what happens it's his only orifice it's only way to get in the mouth is closed the eyes are closed so it's going up the baby's nose into the brain and then it does what it does it shuts down everything and the baby dies usually around day 11 of life and my heart was broken because I felt like and so I went back and I looked at the labs and I lo thumb through and I saw the herpes had not been checked and again you know in the north we check for everything but you know it's like you get your testing and you you review the testing you never said to yourself wait where's the because all the standard stuff is there and um um I felt like that was something that could have been avoided and I felt like it could have been but it is what it is and um I went and I said to the lady who owned the practice I was like why don't we check for herpes if we know that it can cause a fetal death and she was like well it's not standard Tes and it's not recommended by ACOG you know and the level of testing and the level of followup we would have to do the amount of babies that are actually affected by it are minimal if it's one damn baby if it's one baby the test is $50 $60 if it's one baby we can save like WTF and needless to say Obviously that's you know obviously I didn't stay with that practice very long and it wasn't the practice did anything wrong it was just sometimes we got to like not be fixated with the standard and what the literature says and use some goddamn common sense and that pissed me off and that's that's literally why I was so fixated on starting my own practice so that I could do things that made damn sense not the literature shows cuz really so when it comes to pregnancy and herpes if you get pregnant you got herpes whatever you know obviously they should be checking please request if it is not part of the testing and ask your doctor hey do you check for genital herpes um and if they say no please request that they test for it you know obviously if you have outbreaks during the pregnancy we're going to get to outbreaks but if you have outbreaks during the pregnancy you really don't have to do anything if you are herpes positive and you are pregnant okay um the last month of the pregnancy starting at 36 weeks we start you on a medication called Valley cyclo and you just take it once a day the goal is to prevent an outbreak because if you have an outbreak within two weeks of delivery then we usually say that you should probably go for C-section I used to give my patients the choice regardless because some people don't know what an outbreak feels like an outbreak may not be on the outside of your vagina it may be on the inside of your vagina so you know it may be something that's missed and I never want to be in that situation where somebody's baby does not do well so I would give my patients the option Hey listen you can go and it is an option doctors don't like to do it because again if it costs them more work they don't want to do it but if you are a herpes patient it is perfectly legitimate for you to say I don't want to take the risks I don't want to take the risk I just simply would like to do a primary C section they can do that it is an indication for a primary C-section so I used to give my patients the choice some wanted to some didn't want to even if you come in if you have a history of herpes we'll look on the inside of the vagina with the speculum we'll do the best we can we'll have you on the valley cyclo starting at 36 weeks and it's not to say that you can't have a healthy delivery just understand you know what can come of that okay um and like I say medically when it comes to heres it is only skin deep it is never going to be the reason you go to the emergency room and it's never going to be a situation where you Calla somebody um some permanent bodily injury that they're not going to no it is Skin Deep And if you do absolutely nothing a herpes outbreak is going to go away in five days okay so let's talk about what an outbreak means and when will you see one possibly um a herpes outbreak can vary and this is why it's missed so often a herpes outbreak can look like an ingrown hair a her's outbreak can be kind of like within the grooves of the lips of the vagina and it can look like a little slit um it can feel like now let me be clear with this because if I get this question one more time a herpes outbreak is never never ever associated with discharge it's just not it's just not herpes ain't GNA cause discharge okay but it can feel like a yeast infection it can feel it can feel itchy burny SW Ren irritated like you just like I'm just uncomfortable like I'm just not so but and I got a little discharge that ain't herpes okay herpes is that sense of discomfort with no discharge now if you got some dischar got something else going on it's not to say you can't have a herpes outbreak and a yeast infection at the same time but at the end of the day herpes itself is not known for being associated with discharge okay um you can have something on the inside of the vagina we just like my vagina just feels sore I don't know what it is it just feels sore hurts when I have sex it wasn't hurting before it was just hurting this week it just hurts that can be a herpes outbreak so it can vary this is why sometimes it's difficult to isolate you know whether you have it some people will come in and say I just keep getting a herpes outbreak I mean I just keep getting an INR hair in this one spot every time and I be like uhhuh nine times out of 10 it's going to be herpes outbreak okay um but not always that's why we check not always okay you're going to see herpes outbreaks not all the time if you have a normal functioning immune system and you're generally a healthy person you're going to seldom see outbreaks even if somebody says hey you have herpes you're going to seldom see outbreaks you're going to see it in times of stress like somebody dies you got a mortgage payment do ain't got no money um you know you're taking finals um and don't know what the hell you doing so like in times of true true stress in times of exhaustion um you've been working three 12 hour shifts because you're trying to get to the money um you've been working 3 12 hour shifts and you're tired whenever you or if you're sick you have pneumonia you have the cold you have a flu you have covid whenever your immune system is focused on keeping you alive it don't care nothing about the herpes why because the skin deep is never going to truly harm you and it's going to come and go in five days okay so um most people who are affected by herpes generally do not have frequent outbreaks if they've ever seen one at all if they have one it may be every now and again occasionally all the things but it's not anything like you see on um the internet where people got these big nasty fungating sores over they whole cooch parts or they butt no that is not generally what healthy people look like with herpes now those are people who may be in chemotherapy or may have immune disorders or may have any other reason while their immune system is completely broken down and then they may see something like that but that's not the norm that's not what you can expect to see that's not what somebody else is going to see now for my males let me be very clear um herpes outbreaks are not always on the penis sometimes herpes outbreaks they can be on the balls it depends again where it was infected so if a woman touched you and was having an outbreak and then her vagina was hitting your testicles during intercourse well that might be where you get got but for males oftentimes outbreaks can be on the inside of the penis so you can't see it and they can't either that's the gag so a lot of times when dudes are like oh my piss is hot her's outbreak or he's I need to drink some water they be like I need to drink some water I'm dehydrated my piss is hot heres's outbreak a lot of times if they're like um oh I got soap on the inside I got the soap I got the soap her's outbreak it shouldn't really burn when you get soap on the inside unless there's a skin disruption of some sort right okay bam so there's that so don't think well I inspected his penis it wasn't nothing on his dick so I know he ain't have no girl it don't go like that it could have been on the inside and yes girl so you say well if it's Skin Deep if it's genital to genital then how yes because if if he has a Legion on the inside of his penis and the semen comes through there well the semen now has the virus in it right so when that semen touches your skin bam that's how it goes so even if he doesn't have a lesion on the outside of the penis he can still infect you with herpes or him or whoever you know however it goes we dealing with genitals we ain't dealing with sexuality okay so don't be like well what if it's male male Fe it's genitals okay it's and it's bodily fluids so there you go got it okay that's how that goes now socially what does herpes mean now this is where people going to be in the comments wanting to squabble and fight and I don't really get into that cuz I I don't like the scratches on my face so I ain't going to squabble with y'all in the comments or elsewhere I'm just going to tell you what I tell my patients now I like to say that in my practice one of the requirements 8 to 80 and crazy whether you married whether you single any of the above because what I look at is like testing is not about trust you with them that's your man or that's your woman I'm sure they are trustworthy but what they also are is human okay and that means that they are affected by Lifey circumstances they are affected by stuff how many of y'all don't went to the club as a Proverbs 31 Woman and came back as sexy red baby happens all the time okay so um it doesn't mean that um somebody is not trusted by you if you want to see their testing and like I said 8 to 80 or crazy single married it does not matter I offer my patients every year you want to be tested you want to be like you literally have to say to me no I don't think so I'm like okay well if you ever change your mind we're here you don't need an appointment to be tested okay that's how important it is to me and again when you are in a new relationship especially or situationship or whatever it is you want to call what you got going on remember most doctors don't check for herpes so because of the stigma of herpes too people don't want to talk about it people don't want to talk about it so what I always say is before you let anybody touch you or before you touch anybody else y'all should be exchanging paperwork now now I was about two months years old when I found out that people in these streets is out here selling my chart results why because they can they can Jimmy them up so they can screenshot a my chart they can go in they can change the name and you can see the report and say oh I'm clean baby they they done pay for that okay so if somebody has a my chart make them log in make them let's log in because I want to see how many visits you done had too because if you don't have one visit in four years you so I want to see how many visits you had I don't have to know what happened at all your business cuz that's your personal information but you kind of get a chance to see stuff like how many visits they had what they've been checked for you get a chance to see whether somebody goes on a regular basis and even if they don't you know they can straight up be honest with you and be like I don't even go to the doctor like that but I do go to get tested that's cool you want to see what they were tested for and if you feel like Hey listen I don't see herpes on here I feel like if you see somebody's STD testing wonderful but if they have not been tested for herpes I feel like like it is not cuz Okay I want to I want to say this right okay women are and I examine women I don't know what men do I examine women they come in and they like full disclosure I'm all about full disclosure and then I'm like well you showed them your test yeah I showed them my test did you see his no sis do you are you clear on what the word fool means okay great cuz that wasn't full disclosure okay that was your disclosure so you just gave up all your medical information and requested none I don't understand that that's some like that's some broken that's some trauma I don't know what you got going on but the point is is that if you are giving something you should be requesting something in return so if you're exchanging STD testing then you know you need to be seeing that person's herpes result before you give up your herpes result so if somebody comes in my practice and they know that they have herpes um and they say Hey you know I have I have genital herpes okay great whatever how many outbreaks are you having do is this something we need to get treated and we'll talk about treatment um and if they say no I'm good and you know I have maybe one or two outbreaks a year which is the acceptable amount one or two outbreaks a year if you're having an outbreak a month we need to do something about that but um I won't when I retest them for STDs I don't I don't test them for herpes again and one I already know you have it is no sense in you paying for a test and I know what the result is going to be but two I like for you to be able to present your testing to somebody without herpes being there because you need to have the the autonomy or you need to have the right to be able to decide whether you discuss it with somebody or not now I know I just dropped a hammer on somebody like how you going to have herpes and don't tell somebody the same way they got herpes and a tell you I'm just saying now the point is is that if somebody is if you see their testing they've been tested for herpes you see that they are herpes negative I think think that it is a respectable and a respectful thing to say Hey listen let's have a conversation but you need to know the facts I'm herpes positive you know um I don't have frequent outbreaks the transmission rate is only 5% you know blah blah blah and kind of go down and give them the right to decide whether they want to be involved or not it is what it is if they don't keep it pushing because that ain't your person anyway if they weren't going to judge you on the herpes they were going to find something else to judge you on so that ain't your person and keep it pushing and they got the right right and that's if they know their status if they don't know their status I feel like um why are we having this discussion so if it means that much to you then request that they get tested because let's say two years down the line you're dating this person you're like you know what I just want to tell them it's been bothering my spirit I can't hold it back no more right and you tell them well they first thing they going to run and do is let me go get tested and then they're positive well what did that tell you nothing because does it mean that they didn't have it when y'all first started nope does it mean that you gave it to them nope will you ever know what happened nope so that don't make no sense to me so if you feel like it really bothers me that I have this and I want to tell my partner well you need to make sure you know your partner's status because if it's something you say Hey listen I got this if you got it they didn't know that they had it it's forever going to be your diagnosis that you gave to them and that's not always Fair because that may not be the situation so for me you got to know your starting points you got to know your starting points do not get into a sexual relationship with somebody and you don't know where you're starting from cuz way smack in the middle is not the place to be like hey let's discuss this herpes because let's say you've been negative maybe you haven't been tested by doctors you've been with your partner for three years you come to me I'm going if you got it I'm G to find it sis and then I'm like Hey listen and we have this discussion now you go home you don't know what to do with it because you don't know what his herpes status was you don't know if he gave it to you now you're like well was he cheating what because again the transmission rate is only 5% so it's not to say he's been cheating it's not to say he just got it you don't know how long he's had it you don't know how long you've had it so it is so herpes is one of those you can't quantify so that's on that girl and I you know I don't know the girl I don't know the story but when she popped up and was like yeah cuz Usher gave me herpes I was like girl sit down somewhere sit down because you don't know we don't know who else she was having sex with we don't know um you know how long you don't know if you were negative here positive we don't know okay and again you know by statistics girl you had it already anyway so don't even worry about that so I don't know you know I don't know the details of it but when it came out and everybody wanted to come down on Usher because of herpes girl all y'all sit down cuz everybody who throwing stones at this man y'all got it y'all got it so don't even worry about it but the point is and and I get back to make the point of it's not I feel like if you had hepatitis you have HIV you have syphilis something that's going to truly affect the well-being of somebody's life then hell yeah you got to sit and talk about it CU When the People come and ask me did you know I'm snitching I'm snitching I'm on the stand giving it up yep on July 3r her appointment was at 2:30 she was a little bit late um but she came and I had told her she had it and I sent her over to talk to the peoples I'm snitching but when it's something that's herpes that's untimed and it's only skin deep uh I feel like you have a little bit more flexibility and whether it's something you want to discuss now you and be careful now cuz you're in a relationship with somebody or you're in a marriage and he like to go upside your head don't don't don't don't go home talking about this herpes and then careful now careful now it ain't bothered you it ain't bother him listen don't get in that left lane cuz it's a 18 Willer over there waiting for you so also you got to think about the temperament of your partner okay you done see him be a few people up you know and you y'all all cute together you that aggression get turned to you just be careful okay so think about the temperament of the person you're with as well so so many different things are wrapped up in this herpes thing now treatment is there a cure absolutely not it's a virus I told you it's tattooed on your immune system it ain't going nowhere okay now are there meds that's different okay now there is a medication called Valley cycl aycl I'm not a fan of aycl because aycl you have to take more than once a day anything you got to take more than once a day baby you going to fail it you ain't going to take it half the stuff you got to take once a day you ain't going to take but at least with Valley cycl so Valley cycl is a once a day treatment in the spirit of um here's how you take it so let's first talk about what it does valet cycl is not going to prevent you from having outbreaks but it is going to decrease the frequency of your outbreaks um and so let's say you're somebody right now maybe your immune system's compromised maybe you're tired maybe you're sick whatever the case may be but you f you feel yourself getting outbreaks maybe every couple of months or every month after your period people say I get I after every Peri every month after my period which again is when your immune system is compromised you feel um that you are getting more than one or two outbreaks a year then I would say let's get on some medication now I do my medic medication a lot differently than a lot of other doctors a lot of doctors put you on and be like okay take it every day for the rest of your life who want if that's not a constant reminder of some foolishness that again stigma probably has you all jacked up behind anyway who wants to do that not nry none of us so let me just tell you what I tell my patients so if you're having frequent outbreaks I'll put you on the medication for three month stretches at a time so you'll take one pill a day for three months let's do three month stretches um during an outbreak you're going to to take two pills for 5 days so two pills a day for 5 days okay that's what you're going to do for an outbreak and then we're going to do one pill a day for three months and then I would like to see you and say how have you been doing with the outbreaks nope I haven't been having them I have okay good if we're good I'll usually shut you down and say we don't have to really take them again if they if you have an outbreak twice a day for five days but if they're starting to come recurrent again let's get back on the meds but I'll treat you for short periods and then let you go okay because really nobody wants to live that life and often times it's not even necessary again it does not prevent you from transmitting it to somebody again transmission rate 5% sis it does not prevent you from transmitting it to somebody it just decreases how frequently you get outbreaks that's it okay um so there's that um now as far as the medication is concerned um it's usually pretty well tolerated people generally don't have issues with it but one thing that I will say if your diagnosis is not something and who's comfortable sharing all their personal business with anybody I tell my patients to do it real cute go to the dollar store or Target you know we fancy for the dollar store do25 cent store now so we too fancy we might be able to get a cter little container at Target for $2 so maybe go to Target start at Target if they too high Scurry on down to the $125 Cent Store um and get you a little container little container so when you get the pills from the pharmacy you empty those pills into the little container so one nobody's able to screenshot Google and see exactly what you're taking pills for and anything that you're sensitive about you can do this um if somebody's like oh if you somebody's like what's this just be like girl that's a vitamin oh I need me some vitamins and decide to pop one child don't worry about they probably got herpes anyway so don't even worry about it they ain't fitting to hurt their self or nobody else okay and at the end of the day if they have an allergic reaction that's they damn problem you don't jump in nobody's pill box and just start taking okay so that's on them you ain't got no liability um and it is what it is be like girl give me my damn pills and throw them back in your bag so that is a way to deal with that so that they're there your partner doesn't really have any questions anybody else who might happen to look into your bag ain't going to out you for anything and that's a way of dealing with it that you know there okay so that is again what I generally recommend um to my patients all right and so with that that really kind of should have all the social stuff and implications now again one of the other reasons that I kind of got into to this like serious herpes counseling cuz again if you can imagine being in my office we're on like minute 35 minute 40 at this point and I take that time and I literally do this consult four or five times a week that's how often I diagnose newly diagnose people with herpes um another thing that I would definitely like to talk about is I have people who did not truly understand herpes right um I had somebody who come in and say well I only date other people on the herpes website the what the what the hell going on in these internet streets so the herpes website folks and then we got the people who somebody literally um broke off her engagement because she came back positive for her be she did not understand the timing and the mechanics that I'm discussing now and she broke off her engagement and that really broke my heart that showed me that people's lives are being changed that that people's outcomes are changing that what people are making themselves susceptible to or what they feel like they have to deal with because of a fake stigma so it is so important for me that women especially again I'm not biased against men it's just I treat women but um that women truly understand herpes in and of itself not what you read not what you see not some take this supplement anybody who's trying to educate you on a natural treatment for something is trying to sell your ass something it ain't that it works they done went somewhere picked out two lines from this article two lines from this article two lines from this article they're praying on your desperation they're making it sound official and then they get in your $90 a bottle on a 3mon subscription um so that they can get to their coins so be very careful of that guys okay as far as herpes is concerned I talked about the numbers I talked about the transmission rate I talked about the level of transparency that you can decide whether or how transparent you are about it um and I don't feel like you're doing anything to anybody they have the right to say hey I want to see your testing have you been tested for herpes what is your testing what is your herpes result okay so they have the right to be able to say that you're not doing anything to them now if they ask you and you lie that's something different that makes you a janky individual but if they don't ask you or they don't have a result themselves um then I don't feel like you've done anything to anybody to not necessarily discuss or disclose if that makes any sense okay so I hope it does I hope it doesn't come across as being you know janky because that's not what it is like I said if somebody ask you be honest don't lie but if they don't ask like you like with what's the girl on internet said your health is not my responsibility just like your health is not their responsibility so y'all need to be asking these questions if you want the information okay okay so I hope this helped out I hope that you all understand herpes a little bit better um I hope that you all are asking your doctors for the testing and asking your partners for their results and don't be afraid this is nothing to be ashamed of cuz like I said once you hit that 40 45 age range baby you be hard pressed to find somebody who don't have it I hate to say it but that's how it is in these streets so please don't be afraid don't hide in the shadows don't let this not make you date or have a healthy sex life don't let it do it because all the people who you ashaming yourself or you ashamed to say baby they sitting in your same seat they got it they they got it don't even worry about it so I'm hopefully this answered questions and gave you guys what you needed and hopefully somebody out there picks up the piece with this diagnosis that they need so this is Dr Tasha Rogers I'm so glad you tuned in to Dr Tasha after dark um and then we'll see you next time thank you