Hello, I am Dr. Neal Schultz, and welcome to DermTV. When many people find out they have herpes infections, they have these incredibly intense and fortunately unnecessary feelings of guilt or fear and sometimes both. Fear, because they are afraid that it is going to be a life changing event. It is not. Guilt, because they are concerned about who did they already give the infection to or who might they give it to in the future. And the interesting thing, the reactions are the same, whether the infection is on the face, or whether it is a genital infection, or on your finger or your thigh. Let us talk about the fear. This is not a life changing situation. Most people fear is, “when do I get another outbreak?” but the real question should be, “will I get another outbreak?” because so many people have one outbreak and no more, or after that one outbreak, not another one for years or a decade. And if another outbreak comes, it is very easy to treat; you only have to take medication for one day. Yes, it will affect intimacy and your personal life for two or three days, but then it is over and it is done. And in terms of the guilt, most people know when they have outbreaks or when they are contagious, so they can adjust their behavior to make sure they do not spread it. Look, this is the bottom-line: if you have a herpes infection, you did not do anything wrong. It is very easy to treat with one day of medication. It is very easy to control. There is no reason it should change your life. It can only change your life if you empower it to. And as you just heard, there is no reason for that, because it is so easy to treat, so easy to control and you can very well prevent it from affecting people around you. Please join me again at DermTv.com. If you have a question, please send it to me by visiting: DermTv.com/question. I am Dr. Neal Schultz, and thank you for watching today.
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