Understanding Herpes and Busting Stigmas

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 gonna 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 because I'm about to tell some truths that a lot of people haven't told you. Hey, this is Dr. Tasha and I'm back. Dr. Tasha after dark. We're going to 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 the real deal. We need to down. low. 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... is what we have attached to herpes because of what we've heard over the years, which is absolute garbage, all right? It's garbage, it's bullshit. It ain't what herpes actually is. So we're 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 because 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 don't even check for it. Why? Because five-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 blisters. That's cold sores. I ain't impressed 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 two damn near. So I'm not about to do it with herpes one. It's not that huge of a deal. And we'll get back to herpes one and oral sex and blip, blip, but we'll talk about that since we say, oh, it's fever blisters. 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 HSV-2. That's mostly what we're talking about. OK, so when I check, I'm checking for HSV-2 point blank period. Now, this is a complicated topic. Why? Because it's not as straightforward 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 damn works. All right. Now, when something has been introduced to your body, like, you know, 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, oh, 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 antibodies to be like, oh, just in case I don't like you. Yeah, we already got security looking at you. We already got security on you. Okay. And just to make it, you know, visible 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 is like, nah, 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 tacks 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 shock. At some point a surgeon is going to get caught. 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 somebody else's genitals, then it is a possibility that you're going to pick up that occupational hazard, point blank, period. What does that mean? So let's say you 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 bodily 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 stripes? Child. 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, but every stripe is a nerve. So you got C1, C2, C3, C4. So you got C's, then you got the T's, then you got the L's, then you got the S's. So CTLS, whatever, that's not important. But the point is, is that every stripe is a nerve. So 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 an outbreak over here. Then I got an outbreak over here Then I got 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 infected That is where you're gonna have your outbreak and outbreaks gonna 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 say, but I ain't had sex with this person. I ain't even had sex with them. It doesn't matter. This is why some people will have outbreaks on the thigh, 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 tacks 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 because 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 my office, you don't. 8 to 80, cripple of 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 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 for free, 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 test in. It's going to cause a bunch of social problems. They're going to be pissed at their partner. I'm not being biased. bother. 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 we test for. So let's talk about how African-American women, and the reason that is, well, 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 higher, 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's scared to talk about it. And maybe they don't even know because they haven't been tested, but nine times out of ten, they got it. Now, okay, so, so what? So what? You know, you say, OK, well, all these people have herpes. But where they get it from, where do you think they got it from? Now, the problem is that people don't understand herpes. So let's talk a little 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 percent. One, two, three, four, five. It's 5 percent. If you are having an outbreak, the transmission rate is still only 15 percent. So it's not like it's 100 percent. like gonorrhea, chlamydia, like I had sex with you, you got chlamydia, now I got chlamydia. Herpes is not like that, okay? So don't feel like, oh, every time I have sex with somebody, they're going to get herpes and then they're 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're 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 work. 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, it has nothing to do with being dirty or poor. Or, baby, because I got blue bloods from Ivy League schools who've never had sex because they're slated to marry this other blue blood, but, and they got. got it. Okay. And my patients who down at magic city allure, um, onyx 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 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 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 in as healthy as upstate 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 control. 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 as 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. 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 detecting 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 support you. 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 eating 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 tests say, and okay, either you have it or you don't. 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 because they're 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 realized that the virus still lives in my body. It's just undetectable. Can you still transmit it? Absolutely. Okay. 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 finna worry about that. Okay. And we're 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. First came out of residency. I lived in North Carolina. I moved to North Carolina. 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. It was the middle of the Bible Belt. Child, they had, you know, 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-owned practice. Again, I thought I was, you know, I'm with another sister. you know, I'm going to 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 abrasive as hell. Apparently, you know, he was quadriplegic, 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 good. Get in here, get like very, but he he didn't mean any harm. He was just, his tone was just off putting, but he didn't mean any harm. So everybody was kind of afraid 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 when 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 ate centimeters. Come on. Now, if you know me, if you know me from my OB days, baby, I ain't got so many damn parking ticket. I mean, driving tickets, speeding tickets. I done damn near been suspended and wasn't able to drive in the city of Atlanta. Had to talk to the judge about, you know, cause 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. 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 here? Everything okay? I'm thinking something's wrong with her. I'm like, what is happening? Like y'all good? And this is back in 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 encephalitis. And essentially the baby developed multi-systems failure and died. And my heart was absolutely broken. And so I went to PEDS and I I talked to the pediatrician or the neonatologist and I'm like, talk to me about herpes encephalitis. 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 are 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. going up the baby's nose because that's what happens. It's this 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 looked thumb through and I saw that 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 review the testing. You never say to yourself, wait, where's the, because all the standard stuff is there. And, 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 testing. It's not recommended by ACOG. You know, and the level of testing and the level of follow-up 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 us. Like not be fixated with the standard and what the literature says and use some goddamn common sense. And that shit 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 because. Really? So when it comes to pregnancy and herpes, 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. The last month of the pregnancy, starting at 36 weeks, we start you on a medication called Valacyclovir, 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... Everybody'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 risks. 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 valet cyclovir 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. And like I say, medically, when it comes to herpes, 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 cause somebody some permanent bodily injury that they're not. not going to know 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 a herpes outbreak can vary. And this is why it's missed. So often a herpes outbreak can look like an ingrown hair. A herpes 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 going to cause discharge, okay? But it can feel like a yeast infection. It can feel itchy, burny, swollen, irritated. Like, you just like, I'm just uncomfortable. Like, I'm just not. So, and I got a little discharge. That ain't herpes. Okay. OK, herpes is that sense of discomfort with no discharge. Now, if you got some discharge, that's 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. OK, 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. It 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 ingrown hair in this one spot every time. And I'll be like, uh-huh, 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, you ain't got no money. You know, you're taking finals and don't know what the hell you're doing. So like in times of true, true stress, in times of exhaustion, you've been working. three 12-hour shifts because you're trying to get to the money um you're gonna work in three 12-hour shifts and you're tired whenever you or if you're sick you have pneumonia You have a 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 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. the internet where people got these big nasty fungating sores over their whole cooch part so 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 why 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. clear. 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. Herpes outbreak. Or I need to drink some water. They be like, I need to drink some water. I'm dehydrated. My piss is hot. Herpes outbreak. A lot of times if they're like, oh, I got soap on the inside. I got the soap. I got the soap. Herpes 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 lesion 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 or 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, it's genitals. Okay. It's in his 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 are going to be in the comments wanting to squabble and fight. And I don't really get into that because 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, crippled and crazy, whether you're married, whether you're 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 all trust. worthy but what they also are is human okay and that means that they are affected by life 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, eight to 80 cripple, a 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 situation ship 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 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 jimmy them up. So they can screenshot a MyChart, they can go in, they can change the name, and you can see the report. They say, oh, I'm clean. Baby, they done paid for that. Okay, so if somebody has a MyChart, 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, mm-mm. So I want to see how many visits you had. I don't have to know what happened at all your visits because 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 it is not because, okay, 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, are you clear on what the word fool means? Okay, great, because 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 broken shit. That's some trauma shit. I don't know what you got going on. But the point is that if you are giving something, you should be requesting something in return. So if you're exchanging STD testing, then you need to be seeing that person's herpes result before you give up. your herpes result. So if somebody comes to 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. test them for herpes again. And one, I already know you have it. It's no sense that you're 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 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 they ain't tell you. I'm just saying. Now, the point is, is that if somebody is if you see they're testing, they've been tested for herpes, you see that they are herpes negative. I 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, I don't have frequent outbreaks. The transmission rate is only five percent, 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 a 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, 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 him. It's been bothering my spirit. I can't hold it back no more. Right? And you tell them. Well, the first thing they're 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 gonna 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 gotta know your starting points. You gotta know your starting points. Do not get into a sexual relationship with somebody and you don't know where you're starting from because 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. 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 going to find this. 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 when 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 because 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 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. Because 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 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 know what I'm saying? You got to sit and talk about it because 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 3rd, her appointment was at 2.30. She was a little bit late. 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, I feel like you have a little bit more flexibility. And whether it's something you want to discuss. Now you want to be. Be careful now because you're in a relationship with somebody or you're in a marriage and he'd 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 bothered him. Listen, don't get in that left lane because there's an 18-wheeler over there waiting for you. So also you got to think about the temperament of your partner. Okay, you done seen him beat a few people up, you know, and y'all all cute together. That aggression get turned to you. Just be careful. 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 valacyclovir, acyclovir. I'm not a fan of acyclovir because acyclovir, you have to take more than once a day. Anything you got to take more than once a day, baby, you're 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 valacyclovir. So valacyclovir 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. Valacyclovir 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 feel yourself getting outbreaks maybe every couple of months or every month after your period. People say, every month after my period, which again is when your immune system is compromised. you feel 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 medication a lot differently than a lot of other doctors. A lot of doctors will put you on and be like, okay, take it every day for the rest of your life. 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 NANRI, 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 map. 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. During an outbreak, you're going to take two pills for five days. So two pills a day for five 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 recurring 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 oftentimes it's not even necessary. Again, it does not prevent you from. transmitting it to somebody. Again, transmission rate 5%. It does not prevent you from transmitting it to somebody. It just decreases how frequently you get outbreaks. That's it. Okay. So there's that. Now, as far as the medication is concerned, 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 dollar 25 cent store now so we too fancy we might be able to get a cute little container at target for two dollars so maybe go to target start at target if they too high scurry on down to the dollar 25 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. If somebody's like, oh, if somebody's like, what's this? that 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 theyself or nobody else okay and at the end of the day if they have an allergic reaction that's their damn problem you don't jump in nobody's pill box and just start taking shit okay So that's on them. You ain't got no liability. Um, and it is what it is, but I girl gave 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 this like serious herpes counseling, because 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 diagnosed people with herpes. Another thing that I would definitely like to talk about is I have people who did not truly understand. stand 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 herpes 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 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 that women truly understand. about herpes in and of itself. Not what you read, not what you see, not some, I'm going to take this supplement. Anybody who's trying to educate you on a natural treatment for something that's trying to sell you as 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 preying on your desperation. They're making it sound official. And then they get in your $90 a bottle on a three month subscription, um, so that they can get to their coins. So be very careful. 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 test? 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 asks you, be honest, don't lie. But if they don't ask, like you, like what was 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. So I hope this helped out. I hope that you all understand herpes a little bit better. 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. Because like I say, once you hit that 40, 45 age range, baby, you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who does. 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 are shaming yourself or you ashamed to say, baby, they sitting in your same seat. They got it. 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. there picks up the peace with this diagnosis that they need. So this is Dr. Tasha Rogers. I'm so glad you tuned in to Dr. Tasha After Dark. And then we'll see you next time. Thank you.

Dr. Tasha after dark. We're going to 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 the real deal.

We need to down. low. 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... is what we have attached to herpes because of what we've heard over the years, which is absolute garbage, all right? It's garbage, it's bullshit. It ain't what herpes actually is. So we're 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 because 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 don't even check for it. Why? Because five-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 blisters. That's cold sores. I ain't impressed 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 two damn near. So I'm not about to do it with herpes one. It's not that huge of a deal. And we'll get back to herpes one and oral sex and blip, blip, but we'll talk about that since we say, oh, it's fever blisters.

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 HSV-2. That's mostly what we're talking about.

OK, so when I check, I'm checking for HSV-2 point blank period. Now, this is a complicated topic. Why? Because it's not as straightforward 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 damn works.

All right. Now, when something has been introduced to your body, like, you know, 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, oh, 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 antibodies to be like, oh, just in case I don't like you. Yeah, we already got security looking at you. We already got security on you.

Okay. And just to make it, you know, visible 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 is like, nah, 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 tacks 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 shock. At some point a surgeon is going to get caught. 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 somebody else's genitals, then it is a possibility that you're going to pick up that occupational hazard, point blank, period. What does that mean?

So let's say you 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 bodily 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 stripes?

Child. 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, but every stripe is a nerve. So you got C1, C2, C3, C4. So you got C's, then you got the T's, then you got the L's, then you got the S's.

So CTLS, whatever, that's not important. But the point is, is that every stripe is a nerve. So 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 an outbreak over here. Then I got an outbreak over here Then I got 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 infected That is where you're gonna have your outbreak and outbreaks gonna 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 say, but I ain't had sex with this person. I ain't even had sex with them. It doesn't matter. This is why some people will have outbreaks on the thigh, 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 tacks 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 because 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 my office, you don't. 8 to 80, cripple of 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 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 for free, 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 test in. It's going to cause a bunch of social problems. They're going to be pissed at their partner.

I'm not being biased. bother. 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 we test for. So let's talk about how African-American women, and the reason that is, well, 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 higher, 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's scared to talk about it. And maybe they don't even know because they haven't been tested, but nine times out of ten, they got it. Now, okay, so, so what? So what? You know, you say, OK, well, all these people have herpes.

But where they get it from, where do you think they got it from? Now, the problem is that people don't understand herpes. So let's talk a little 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 percent.

One, two, three, four, five. It's 5 percent. If you are having an outbreak, the transmission rate is still only 15 percent. So it's not like it's 100 percent. like gonorrhea, chlamydia, like I had sex with you, you got chlamydia, now I got chlamydia.

Herpes is not like that, okay? So don't feel like, oh, every time I have sex with somebody, they're going to get herpes and then they're 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're 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 work. 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, it has nothing to do with being dirty or poor. Or, baby, because I got blue bloods from Ivy League schools who've never had sex because they're slated to marry this other blue blood, but, and they got.

got it. Okay. And my patients who down at magic city allure, um, onyx 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 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 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 in as healthy as upstate 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 control.

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 as 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. 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 detecting 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 support you.

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 eating 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 tests say, and okay, either you have it or you don't.

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 because they're 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 realized that the virus still lives in my body. It's just undetectable. Can you still transmit it? Absolutely. Okay.

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 finna worry about that. Okay.

And we're 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. First came out of residency.

I lived in North Carolina. I moved to North Carolina. 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. It was the middle of the Bible Belt. Child, they had, you know, 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-owned practice. Again, I thought I was, you know, I'm with another sister.

you know, I'm going to 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 abrasive as hell. Apparently, you know, he was quadriplegic, 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 good. Get in here, get like very, but he he didn't mean any harm.

He was just, his tone was just off putting, but he didn't mean any harm. So everybody was kind of afraid 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 when 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 ate centimeters. Come on.

Now, if you know me, if you know me from my OB days, baby, I ain't got so many damn parking ticket. I mean, driving tickets, speeding tickets. I done damn near been suspended and wasn't able to drive in the city of Atlanta.

Had to talk to the judge about, you know, cause 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. 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 here?

Everything okay? I'm thinking something's wrong with her. I'm like, what is happening? Like y'all good? And this is back in 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 encephalitis. And essentially the baby developed multi-systems failure and died. And my heart was absolutely broken. And so I went to PEDS and I I talked to the pediatrician or the neonatologist and I'm like, talk to me about herpes encephalitis. 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 are 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. going up the baby's nose because that's what happens. It's this 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 looked thumb through and I saw that 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 review the testing. You never say to yourself, wait, where's the, because all the standard stuff is there.

And, 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 testing. It's not recommended by ACOG. You know, and the level of testing and the level of follow-up 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 us.

Like not be fixated with the standard and what the literature says and use some goddamn common sense. And that shit 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 because.

Really? So when it comes to pregnancy and herpes, 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. The last month of the pregnancy, starting at 36 weeks, we start you on a medication called Valacyclovir, 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... Everybody'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 risks.

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 valet cyclovir 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.

And like I say, medically, when it comes to herpes, 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 cause somebody some permanent bodily injury that they're not.

not going to know 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 a herpes outbreak can vary.

And this is why it's missed. So often a herpes outbreak can look like an ingrown hair. A herpes 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 going to cause discharge, okay?

But it can feel like a yeast infection. It can feel itchy, burny, swollen, irritated. Like, you just like, I'm just uncomfortable.

Like, I'm just not. So, and I got a little discharge. That ain't herpes.

Okay. OK, herpes is that sense of discomfort with no discharge. Now, if you got some discharge, that's 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.

OK, 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. It 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 ingrown hair in this one spot every time. And I'll be like, uh-huh, 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, you ain't got no money. You know, you're taking finals and don't know what the hell you're doing. So like in times of true, true stress, in times of exhaustion, you've been working. three 12-hour shifts because you're trying to get to the money um you're gonna work in three 12-hour shifts and you're tired whenever you or if you're sick you have pneumonia You have a 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 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. the internet where people got these big nasty fungating sores over their whole cooch part so 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 why 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.

clear. 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. Herpes outbreak. Or I need to drink some water.

They be like, I need to drink some water. I'm dehydrated. My piss is hot. Herpes outbreak. A lot of times if they're like, oh, I got soap on the inside.

I got the soap. I got the soap. Herpes 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 lesion 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 or 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, it's genitals. Okay.

It's in his 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 are going to be in the comments wanting to squabble and fight.

And I don't really get into that because 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, crippled and crazy, whether you're married, whether you're 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 all trust. worthy but what they also are is human okay and that means that they are affected by life 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, eight to 80 cripple, a 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 situation ship 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 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 jimmy them up. So they can screenshot a MyChart, they can go in, they can change the name, and you can see the report.

They say, oh, I'm clean. Baby, they done paid for that. Okay, so if somebody has a MyChart, 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, mm-mm. So I want to see how many visits you had. I don't have to know what happened at all your visits because 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 it is not because, okay, 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, are you clear on what the word fool means? Okay, great, because 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 broken shit. That's some trauma shit. I don't know what you got going on.

But the point is that if you are giving something, you should be requesting something in return. So if you're exchanging STD testing, then you need to be seeing that person's herpes result before you give up. your herpes result. So if somebody comes to 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. test them for herpes again.

And one, I already know you have it. It's no sense that you're 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 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 they ain't tell you. I'm just saying. Now, the point is, is that if somebody is if you see they're testing, they've been tested for herpes, you see that they are herpes negative. I 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, I don't have frequent outbreaks.

The transmission rate is only five percent, 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 a 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, 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 him. It's been bothering my spirit. I can't hold it back no more.

Right? And you tell them. Well, the first thing they're 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 gonna 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 gotta know your starting points. You gotta know your starting points. Do not get into a sexual relationship with somebody and you don't know where you're starting from because 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. 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 going to find this.

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 when 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 because 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 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.

Because 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 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 know what I'm saying? You got to sit and talk about it because 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 3rd, her appointment was at 2.30. She was a little bit late. 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, I feel like you have a little bit more flexibility.

And whether it's something you want to discuss. Now you want to be. Be careful now because you're in a relationship with somebody or you're in a marriage and he'd 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 bothered him. Listen, don't get in that left lane because there's an 18-wheeler over there waiting for you.

So also you got to think about the temperament of your partner. Okay, you done seen him beat a few people up, you know, and y'all all cute together. That aggression get turned to you. Just be careful.

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 valacyclovir, acyclovir. I'm not a fan of acyclovir because acyclovir, you have to take more than once a day. Anything you got to take more than once a day, baby, you're 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 valacyclovir.

So valacyclovir 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. Valacyclovir 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 feel yourself getting outbreaks maybe every couple of months or every month after your period. People say, every month after my period, which again is when your immune system is compromised.

you feel 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 medication a lot differently than a lot of other doctors. A lot of doctors will put you on and be like, okay, take it every day for the rest of your life.

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 NANRI, 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 map. 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. During an outbreak, you're going to take two pills for five days. So two pills a day for five 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 recurring 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 oftentimes it's not even necessary. Again, it does not prevent you from. transmitting it to somebody.

Again, transmission rate 5%. It does not prevent you from transmitting it to somebody. It just decreases how frequently you get outbreaks.

That's it. Okay. So there's that. Now, as far as the medication is concerned, 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 dollar 25 cent store now so we too fancy we might be able to get a cute little container at target for two dollars so maybe go to target start at target if they too high scurry on down to the dollar 25 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. If somebody's like, oh, if somebody's like, what's this?

that 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 theyself or nobody else okay and at the end of the day if they have an allergic reaction that's their damn problem you don't jump in nobody's pill box and just start taking shit okay So that's on them. You ain't got no liability. Um, and it is what it is, but I girl gave 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 this like serious herpes counseling, because 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 diagnosed people with herpes. Another thing that I would definitely like to talk about is I have people who did not truly understand.

stand 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 herpes 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 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 that women truly understand. about herpes in and of itself. Not what you read, not what you see, not some, I'm going to take this supplement.

Anybody who's trying to educate you on a natural treatment for something that's trying to sell you as 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 preying on your desperation. They're making it sound official.

And then they get in your $90 a bottle on a three month subscription, um, so that they can get to their coins. So be very careful. 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 test? 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 asks you, be honest, don't lie.

But if they don't ask, like you, like what was 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. So I hope this helped out. I hope that you all understand herpes a little bit better.

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.

Because like I say, once you hit that 40, 45 age range, baby, you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who does. 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 are shaming yourself or you ashamed to say, baby, they sitting in your same seat. They got it.

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. there picks up the peace with this diagnosis that they need. So this is Dr. Tasha Rogers.

I'm so glad you tuned in to Dr. Tasha After Dark. And then we'll see you next time. Thank you.

Transcript for:Understanding Herpes and Busting Stigmas

Transcript for:
Understanding Herpes and Busting Stigmas