Can Anxiety Cause Herpes Symptoms?
HSV (herpes) in the genital area can cause pain during urinating as well as unusual discharge. Alternatively, HSV-1 can cause cold sores and blisters around the lips. Typically, herpes flare-ups that occur following the first break out are usually less severe, but they can still impact physical and mental wellbeing. In this blog, we’ll look at whether or not anxiety can actually trigger a breakout.
So can anxiety cause herpes symptoms? Yes, anxiety is a common cause for a herpes flare-up among other illnesses, fatigue, and for women their menstrual cycle. Fortunately, there are precautionary measures that you can work into your lifestyle to help prevent herpes flare-ups.
Continue reading to learn more about how to prevent any herpes flare-ups.
Can Anxiety Cause Herpes Symptoms?
Herpes is a sexually transmitted infection that can cause oral and genital symptoms depending on the strain. What’s different about herpes compared to other sexually transmitted infections is that herpes can not be cured. Nevertheless, there are medications that can help manage the condition, thus making flare-ups not uncommon.
So what can cause a herpes outbreak? Anxiety is a common cause of herpes flare-ups, as well as other illnesses, infection, fatigue, and much more. Anxiety that causes a herpes outbreak does not have to be tied to an anxiety disorder of some sort; any physical stress, such as tiredness (fatigue), and emotional stress, such as anxiety and/or depression, can cause herpes symptoms.
Why Does Anxiety Cause Herpes?
Typically, when you are worried, stressed, or feeling exhausted, your immune system suffers and becomes weaker. When your immune system is under excessive stress, your resistance to the infection is weaker, giving the herpes virus an opportunity to resurface.
As previously stated, anxiety is not the only factor that causes outbreaks. The following section will go through what else has been reported to produce a herpes flare.
Other Causes of Herpes Flare-Ups
There are a number of other causes of a herpes flare, and we have detailed them below so you can have a better understanding.
- Sickness
- Infection
- Surgery
- Vigorous sex or friction to the skin during intercourse or masturbation
- Irritation or excessive sweating around the genital due to tight clothing or riding a bike
- Over consumption of alcohol
- Exposure of affected area to strong sunlight or ultraviolet light
How Can I Prevent Herpes Flare-Ups?
Although herpes is incurable it isn’t unmanageable. In addition to the medications that doctors and sexual health specialists can prescribe to help manage and subside symptoms, there are a variety of precautions you can take to help prevent future outbreaks. This can be done at home and requires only minor lifestyle changes. What you can do as outlined below.
- Boost Nutrient Intake
- Avoid Inflammatory Foods
- Consider Supplements
- Avoid smoking
- Avoiding alcohol
Can Herpes Develop into HIV?
As herpes is incurable, a major issue is whether herpes develops into HIV. The answer is no, however, because herpes weakens the immune system, unfortunately, you are more susceptible to contracting HIV. We have provided some recommendations which you should do to avoid contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted infections below
- During intercourse use condoms.
- After changing partners have a sexual health test.
- Receive a vaccination
- Regular sexual health screenings
Herpes Simplex Testing at Your Sexual Health
At Your Sexual Health, we provide a variety of private STI testing options that can diagnose herpes simplex type 1 and 2. Individual tests that employ urine, swab, or blood samples to diagnose the illness are available at our clinics located across the country.
We also have a number of profile tests that can diagnose a variety of STIs using a single sample, giving you complete peace of mind that you are completely clear.
