HSV-2 and Neuro Symptoms

i have heard that re-activated viruses can be a component of chronic lyme disease - once the immune system gets disturbed.

and HSV-1 and HSV-2 are, i think, both able to infect the CNS on occasion. ( i think all herpes family viruses infect nerve tissues)

the problem / difficult area seems to be how to know if this is something that is actually happening in any given individual vs just an assumption or speculation.

serology is obviously one avenue to explore - but its rarely definitive - and known to be of variable utility in lyme disease - as the persons ability to make antibodies is disrupted - and this can mean both not making the expected antibodies to Lyme disease causing organisms and also making unexpected antibodies to other things, like viruses, due to cross reactivity

this is documented in the case of EBV ( another herpes family virus ) - so may occur in others

my overall perspective would be to look to other ways to confirm HSV-2 active infection - using different technology - rather than just serology - before deciding that this is in fact the cause of symptoms

dcd2103, there appears to be an outbreak, so that’s why I was thinking it’s active. But I’ve never had an outbreak before, so it caught me by surprise.

Garzie, thanks for the insight. I had wondered about cross-reactivity with other viruses. Especially Epstein Barr. That’s interesting about the CNS. I had never realized that. Thanks!

MA10, where is your neuropathy? Is it only in the area of your outbreak or other places like hands/feet? Did you have the neuropathy before the hsv2 outbreak? I kinda figured you had an outbreak given your mention of “certain symptoms”.

Do you think you were recently infected (ie new partner or some other risk), or that it’s always been there and just came out now? Feel free not to answer as thats a private question, it’s more for my own edification as I’ve long suspected people can get infected and have no symptoms only to have the infection come out years later. This happened to a friend of mine after going on a biologic called Orencia that suppresses the immune system, and wham HSV-2 came out that he never knew he had, and def didn’t contract at the time, according to him.

There is a protocol of NAC, Immuplex, lysine and monolaurin which a friend of mine w reactivated EBV (another human herpes virus) used successfully to get his fatigue and EBV titers (they went negative) down, after Valtrex didn’t work. Unfortunately I think the monolaurin may make your neuropathy worse tho. There’s another antiviral product someone else I know is using, will get the name