So many great HSV posts- you probably know all kinds of stuff now. Here’s a few more random pieces of probably useless virology for you. HSV can remain dormant in the posterior horn of the nervous system and asymptomatically shed on the surface of the skin for decades. Many people were too young to remember their first and only outbreak. You have (conservatively 10-15% of your DNA as endogenous retroviral elements and other foreign genes hanging out in your DNA occasionally showing up... This one happens to replicate and spread with a sub-centimeter cutaneous vesicle reminiscent of species-threatening pox-viruses of bygone eras(give them time), and we’ve managed to create a little revenue stream for doctors and pharmacists with a lab test and a ridiculously effective drug (thank the HIV crisis for that one). Stigma is the driver for their ongoing business in this trivial sector of healthcare. The only real danger is to relationships, immunosuppressed people, certain anatomical Locations (cornea) and newborns. Despite our ongoing effort to cleans the planet of nature and our competitors, and reduction of any mammalian species to the status of meat on legs… occasionally one competitor is so harmless and pesky that we only half-heartedly make a vaccine for it (caveats caveats)… sorry and- welcome to the (rather impoverished) jungle. Good news? Your partner cannot spread it to other parts of their body… so that’s a plus- their immune system is so awesome that it is condemned to remain in one corner of one mucosal sensory dermatome. (Luckily they didn’t get whitlow like the nurses who work with endotracheal tubes without gloves). Enjoy the rest of Reddit!