A little background, 36 male here. I've had ghsv for 17 years, oral hsv for about 10 years, and more recently I think I've spread it to my left hand.
After taking some extreme antibiotics for recent dental work, which can lower your immune system, I noticed I had a pretty severe genital and oral outbreak simultaneously. When this began, I noticed some pretty serious burning sensations on the left side of my spine in my middle back, which radiated down my left arm. Lymph nodes in my left arm pit were super sore too.
This pain has slowly turned into a tingling and burning sensation which has traveled down my left arm to my hand. It feels just like the start of a new infection, just like when I had my initial genital and oral outbreaks, respectively.
Constant burning and dull soreness. Tingling, radiating down my arm and through my hand, but no sores yet. But I'm convinced they'll show up soon. I'm terrified.
This disease has already wrecked my life. It's ruled over me like a dark cloud for the last 17 years. I lost all desire, determination, and ambition years ago because of this. Everyone says it gets better with time but for me it has only gotten exponentially worse. I don't mean to scare anyone new to this disease, I'm just very bad luck. And I'm tired, and I'm so, so scared. I need my hands. I'm a blue collar worker. I can't afford to lose my ability to work with tools due to chronic contagious infections on my hands. I couldn't live with myself if I spread this to a client or customer. Or constantly worried to touch my own face, or a friend's hand. Or anything else that could put someone at risk.
I guess I'm just venting at this point. Has anyone had prodrome symptoms of whitlow that never erupted to full blown sores? How do you cover it, latex gloves? How do you explain constant finger or hand gloves to people who ask? I'm spiralling and I'm sorry if I sound too panicked right now but I'm just so, so tired of this. I'm just...tired.