Genital Herpes Blood TestEven though genital herpes blood tests cannot effectively confirm the location of a herpes infection, it is crucial that people get a genital herpes testing if they have a very active sex life or herpes like symptoms. The mere thought that someone may have contracted herpes is quite disturbing but it should be kept in mind that the best remedy for a possible infection is early diagnosis. To get rid of the nagging feeling of being infected, face the problem and take a HSV blood test. Genital Herpes blood tests can be used when a person has no visible symptoms but has concerns about having herpes. Blood tests do not actually detect the virus; instead, they look for antibodies in the blood. Blood tests are also quite effective even when the lesions have actually healed. This is one of several advantages of genital herpes blood tests over other herpes testing procedures. There are several old blood tests commercially available but most are not accurate they cannot distinguish between herpes types, HSV-1 and HSV-2 antibodies. This makes it highly probable to get a false positive result particularly for HSV-2. When an individual contracts herpes, the body’s immune system reacts by developing antibodies to fight the virus. These antibodies are called IgG and IgM. Blood tests can find and detect these antibodies as the herpes virus itself is not present in the blood. The most accurate tests detects IgG antibodies. Unlike IgM, IgG can be precisely broken down to either HSV-1 or HSV-2. There are currently four FDA approved gG-based herpes blood tests that can give conclusive results. These type-specific accurate tests are biokitHSV-2 Rapid Test, HerpeSelect HSV-1 and HSV-2 tests, Herpes Western Blot, and CAPTIA HSV IgG Type-specific ELISAs. How Genital Herpes Blood Tests are DoneThe laboratory technician will wrap an elastic band around your arm to plug the blood flow. This makes the veins below the band to enlarge thus making it easier to insert a needle into the vein. The needle will be cleansed with alcohol and then put into the vein. Then a tube will be attached to the needle to fill it with blood. After that, the band will be removed from your arm when enough blood had been collected. A gauze pad or a cotton ball will then be used to cover the site as the needle is removed. Genital Herpes Blood Test Results Results from blood tests that detect the herpes simplex virus normally take 10 minutes for biokitHSV-2 Rapid Test to one to two weeks for the other tests. Some tests have a small chance of return false negative or false positive test results. You can read more about this at our herpes blood test page 
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