> There's no cure. Like colds.

Colds resolve in a few days to a week. There is absolutely a cure, just not one in pill form.

Most HSV outbreaks also resolve in a few days to a week, and either never recur at all or recur extremely infrequently.

The outbreak resolves. The infection does not. And recurrence of HSV is quite common.

Speak for yourself, I don't have any form of HSV. One advantage to being a quiet friendless nerd throughout my youth was never catching chickenpox.

Not having chickenpox (and not being vaccinated for it) isn't really an advantage. Chickenpox as an adult is serious business: complications like pneumonia and encephalitis are much more common, and there's a significantly higher risk of death or hospitalization (75% of deaths from chickenpox are in adults, despite < 10% of the cases being in adults). You're also at higher risk for shingles if you catch it as an adult than as a child. Chickenpox is extremely contagious; it's airborne, can be transmitted just from being in the same area as someone with the disease for 15 minutes, and over 90% of people exposed will come down with the illness.

If you didn't get it as a kid you really should get vaccinated for it as an adult. Being exposed to the attenuated form of HHV-3 in the vaccine is way safer than actually catching the disease.

How do you know? Have you had HSV blood tests?

In my 20s. I suppose it's remotely possible that I contracted HSV since then without ever having any symptoms, but my understanding of HSV is that with all forms the initial infection is obvious so that's quite unlikely.

We're not talking about HPV, which I (and you) very likely have wether we know it or not, without vaccination.

It's more likely than you think.

"Oral herpes infection is mostly asymptomatic, and the majority of people with HSV-1 infection are unaware they are infected." [1]

[1] From https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/herpes-simp...

>I suppose it's remotely possible that I contracted HSV since then without ever having any symptoms

It actually is. Most people are asymptomatic, or their symptoms are so mild that they confuse them for a pimple.

https://www.cdc.gov/std/herpes/stdfact-herpes-detailed.htm

I'll announce my scarlet letter to make a point. I was recently tested for HSV and came back positive for HSV-2. I've never been tested before so I have no idea how long I've had it, but it was a surprise because I've had zero symptoms. In fact, I figured it was a false positive so I got re-tested.

No, almost 40% of us do not get it. This is not something inevitable. I don't have any family member with the symptoms.

You realize most people don't get any symptoms, right? Many people contract it as a kid (a kiss from a relative) and their immune system suppresses it. Unless you get an HSV blood test you will not know.

Even blood tests are unreliable. IIRC, IgG tests are quite reliable but not every clinic does them. Many clinics default to an IgM test, which are useless[0]. The gold standard here is the Western Blot test

[0]: https://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/igm-blood-test-...