Anonymous #1 8h

I think the meningitis thing might be a little dramatic just bc I’m assuming it’s pretty uncommon to get through oral herpes unless u completely neglect a cold sore & it gets infected. Oral herpes/hsv1 is usually asymptomatic & u don’t need medication to suppress it unless ur unlucky ig but Ik like 70% of the world ppltn has it so thats a large reason its normalized & tbh I don’t think it’s a bad thing too. The majority of ppl only get a cold sore annually or every few years. But genital/hsv2…

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Anonymous #1 8h

Genital herpes/hsv2 is smn else that I don’t think shld be normalized lol off the top of my head from a lecture last semester I think only 18% of ppl have it in the US or globally I don’t remember which

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Anonymous #4 8h

I think the fact that there’s a risk at all is enough, but I just looked and it’s actually the cause of 8% of all meningitis cases which is at least a little alarming to me. It’s apparently the leading cause of meningitis in adults too.

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Anonymous #1 8h

Also I was mistaken, it’s somewhat common with genital herpes as well. Around a quarter of people with genital herpes will also get meningitis symptoms

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Anonymous #4 8h

But I think it’s bad to normalize oral herpes because a good number of people got it before they could even form memories through relatives kissing them as babies. Plus when you refer to it as a “cold sore”, it’s less likely that someone think to mention it to their partner when discussing STDs because they’ll assume everyone has it. Like I said, it doesn’t make someone undateable but I definitely don’t want to deal with it myself since I’m clear of it.

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Anonymous #1 7h

you can consider it a dealbreaker but literally 80%+ of people have HSV1/cold sores. I also find it disgusting and would avoid it at all costs but it definitionally is normal. the average person has it.

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Anonymous #2 7h

Right, but don’t you think it would be a good idea to work towards making it not the norm? There were plenty of times in history where certain illnesses were the norm by that standard, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing or that it shouldn’t be addressed.

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Anonymous #1 6h

if there was an HSV1 vaccine, I'd be first in line to get it. since there isn't, there's no real point to stigmatizing something that, again, 4 out of 5 people have and can do nothing about

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Anonymous #1 5h

Yes while that’s true ur only like less than 1% likely to get meningitis from cold sores even tho it makes up 8% of meningitis so I wldnt say it’s very statistically significant. An example of how to process that cld be = the majority of ppl who died were vaccinated but that’s bc the majority of ppl r vaccinated & everyone dies (YouTube lol) I think this relates lol bc u didn’t see the insignificant # of meningitis cases that come from cold sores but instead focused on how they make up a …

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Anonymous #4 5h

… good % of overall meningitis cases if that makes sense. Basically what I’m saying is that u shldnt always focus on the larger number ygwIm? It sounds scary and gross but it’s rlly no biggy just don’t do freaky stuff when u have an active coldsore/lesion & it’s not exactly an STD although it can be contracted sexually it basically works like any other type of flu if that makes it easier to understand so rlly no point in investing ur money in preventative stuff like that,a coldsore cream will do

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Anonymous #1 5h

I commented down below but also Meningitis itself is pretty rare tho so u shldnt scare yourself

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