What are the symptoms of a genital herpes infection?
Symptoms, if they occur at all, can vary a lot from person to person. They’re likely to be most severe in a primary infection that is, when you first contract genital herpes and have no oral or genital herpes antibodies to help fight the virus. Between two and 14 days after exposure to the virus, you may get red bumps on your vagina or vulva, which will turn into blisters and eventually rupture and become painful sores. There may be just a few or you might have a large cluster, and they can last for up to three weeks with a primary infection. You may have an itchy, burning, painful, or tingling sensation in your genital area, have vaginal discharge, have tender swollen lymph nodes near the groin, and experience some pain when you urinate. With a primary infection, you might also have flu-like symptoms, including fever, headache, and muscle aches. A few pregnant women get very sick during a primary infection and need to be treated intravenously with an antiviral medication called acyclo
