A member asked:

Can you give yourself genital herpes from touching your own cold sore than your genitals?

13 doctors weighed in across 5 answers
Dr. Melissa Gowans answered

Specializes in Pediatrics

No: You already have herpes - you can give it to some one else, but you already have it…so you can't really give it to yourself again. It's really rare to transmit to another area on the body.

Answered 10/4/2016

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Hypothetically yes: The oral to genital transmission of herpes simplex virus is well known to occur. This is why it no longer useful to test for HSV-1 or HSV-2 since both can cause oral or genital outbreaks. In theory if you were to touch a newly ruptured vesicle and then immediately Touch your genitals in an area of skin breakdown small cut etc. Then transmission would be theoretically possible.

Answered 9/28/2016

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Herpes: The herpes genital and oral are two different strains of virus and cannot be transmitted from one form to the other

Answered 6/1/2018

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Yes: both type I and Type 2 herpes can be found in the genital and the face area in recent years so it can be transmitted from the mouth area to the genital area and vice versa.

Answered 6/1/2018

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Yes: If you touch the blister and the fluid contains the herpes virus it can spread elsewhere including the South Pole

Answered 7/31/2019

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