Life With Herpes: Breaking the Stigma and Shame with Alexandra Harbushka and Linda Kreter
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Welcome to Wise Health for Women Radio with Linda Prater. Women are pressed daily to give more, learn more, and be more, often at the expense of mind, body, or spirit. Each week with intriguing guests and topics, we'll bring you fresh ways to view your limited time, encouraging a shift to new, healthier perspectives. Wise Health for Women Radio, helping women thrive. And now here's your host, Linda Prater.

Good morning and welcome to Wise Health for Women Radio. I'm Linda Crater and we are going to talk about a topic that is often stigmatized, not spoken about, but I know affects many, many people in our audience or they know friends or family who have this same problem. We're going to be talking about life with herpes.

and the ways you can bring it into conversation, tips for normalizing something that happens to a lot of people.

And we're not going to shy away from anything in this discussion because let's face it, this is a topic that is often spoken about privately or maybe not even spoken about privately. But let's put it out there so that we inform and educate. And it is, it's a changing landscape. Many of us have read about nursing homes and things where people,

sexually transmitted infections are growing. And so it's not something that goes away no matter what the age. So I'd love to introduce you to Alexandra Harbushka, who's going to be talking today about life with herpes. I am so excited to be here, Linda. Thank you. Of course, you know, it's one of those things, herpes is something I never thought out to talk about. Yeah.

It wasn't a life goal. Yeah, it wasn't a light. It wasn't like, Oh, let me go to college so I can start a business about herpes. Like clearly that wasn't on the market. Yeah.

No, but it is a need. And I mean, I feel like this is almost like a public service announcement episode. And so I'm really glad you're here to talk frankly, candidly. And let's clear up first which herpes we're talking about. Are you talking about oral herpes or genital herpes predominantly? Both, to be honest. All right. Yes, so both. Herpes is extremely prevalent in

It is something that we don't talk about because of the stigma, whether it is oral herpes or genital herpes. It's something like, oh, you know, I have the good kind, not the bad kind, or I don't get herpes, I get fever blisters. And it's all the same thing. It is. Well, it's all a herpes simplex. And if you've had...

Anyway, I'll let you explain. So keep going. Okay. Two types of herpes. Well, there's actually hundreds of types of herpes, but specifically what we're talking about today is HSV1 or HSV2, which is herpes simplex virus 1 or herpes simplex virus 2. And it wasn't until about 40, 45 years ago, we didn't know that there was a difference. We just thought you have herpes on your mouth or herpes on your genitals.

And we just didn't have the technology in order to look at the viral DNA and realize that there were two types. So HSV-1 is most commonly associated with oral herpes. Two out of three people have HSV-1. And then we have HSV-2, which is most commonly associated with genital herpes. Roughly one out of six people have HSV-2.

Um, however, what's very, very interesting is at this point, because we're doing more testing or, or, well, not as much testing as I think we should do, but, um, because people are getting tested, they're realizing, oh, you mean I have oral herpes down there? How did that happen? Or you'll have people that have, wait, I have genital herpes on my mouth. How did that happen? And so be, so either virus.

can go either location. Okay. And so now you, you asked me before we got on our talking before, and I asked you, is, is it rising? Is it, is it, you know, staying the same? Is it, where is it in, um, growth or rescission or are people becoming better educated about how not to spread? So I would say, so it's very interesting. I launched,

So I was diagnosed with herpes, genital herpes in 2011. And in 2011, there was nothing out there on herpes. There was the CDC, there was WebMD, there was Planned Parenthood. It was a very sterile situation. It was very bullet point. It was just very statistic based. And I would say, and then I launched Life With Herpes in 2017. Okay.

And I would say that since 2017, there's been a huge transformation and other people talking about their life with herpes. But it still is extremely stigmatized.

It is extremely suffocating when you are diagnosed. There are many, many, many people who don't know anything about herpes. And as far as it, is it increasing? Is it decreasing? While there are more people talking about it, which is wonderful, it is pretty much staying the same. There's not really an increase or decrease. What is different is

is there's our youth. So I'd say our teens, our twenties, they are getting HSV-1. So what's commonly associated with oral herpes, they're getting it genitally. Interesting. Mm-hmm.

And how that happens is cold sores, fever, blisters, they're herpes. And it's the same thing as you get genitally. And we're not educated in the sense that people don't associate oral herpes with a potential STD. And so when you do things with your mouth, with your partner, whatever you do with your mouth, that can be transferred to whatever location.

And that's how the transfer is made. And the interesting part is, though, I can imagine that most people don't even give a thought. If someone has, as you said earlier, fever blisters, okay, no big deal. People will say, well, I just get them when the sun is out. Right, or I have a cold, or I went skiing and the sun was on my lips. Yeah, yeah.

And so if you don't know that it's transferable that way, then you don't take precautions. Am I right? Right. And that's what's happening. Exactly. Okay. People are not aware that either what they have is contagious. They just think, oh, everyone in my family has, I mean, everyone gets them, right? It's something like 80% of the population has oral herpes.

Oral and genital combined. Oh, combined. Okay. Sorry. Right. And I honestly think it's more, it's just not everybody's tested for it. And so you have these teenagers. I can't tell you how many teenagers I've talked to and they're like, I'm a virgin and I have it down there. And, you know, a girlfriend or boyfriend has cold sores and there you go.

Is it taught in sex ed classes? Are sex ed classes still there? My children are grown, so I don't actually even know if health classes include STDs or what they're now calling STIs. I mean, I'm not... Bring me up today. Yes. And I think that really is dependent on your school, the location. Is it private schools? Is it public school? When I was in school, when I was in high school in the 90s, which was really interesting, I...

actually taught sex ed, they did a really great thing and it was partnered with Planned Parenthood and they asked certain kids to be educated through Planned Parenthood. And we went into other schools within San Diego County and we actually taught sex ed to our peers.

So that's, that must've been very effective though. Correct. It was, yeah, it was very, it was great. It was affected here. You have another 16 year old talking about it opposed to someone that you're like, have you ever had sex? You know? Um,

And, and however, I still, I still got herpes. So I still believe I knew what herpes was. I knew how it was transmitted. I still never believed I would get it because I still believed the association, the, the, the, the taboos or the, the, like, I believe that if, well, if you were monogamous, you weren't going to get an STD because if you're monogamous,

How would you get it? And I believe that nobody I would like would obviously have an STD or have herpes because that's just not, I'm not going to like anybody that would be that type of person. But it doesn't have anything to do with being a player or not. Correct. Correct. With 80% of the population having herpes. And so

genital herpes is less common. Like I said, one out of six. So HSV2, I shouldn't say oral genital. HSV2 is less common because one out of six people have it. And HSV2 is most commonly in the genital area. So it's hard to accidentally have your genitals touch someone else's genitals, right? That doesn't accidentally happen, right? No, it's usually an intentional thing. Right. But with our mouth...

With two out of three people having HSV-1, that can accidentally happen. You know what I mean? Like we use our mouth. You touch your mouth. You share chapstick. You share a beer. You, whatever it is, you know, you share a juice box in the kindergarten and don't realize that the kid has a cold sore. You know what I mean? So these things are far more, it's far more common to have HSV-1 because our mouths are exposed. Right.

And I believe if our genitals were exposed or if it was reversed, HSV-2 was more commonly oral, then we'd have more HSV-2. It's just the locate, you know. So it's funny. My background is clinical trials, and we did do a clinical trial to recruit patients where one partner had HSV.

trying to think the details on this. I may not get this all right. And the other did not. And they were testing a medication to see if they could stop the transfer between them. It was a difficult recruitment because in many cases it had been not discussed among the couple. You have no idea how often that happens. Talk to me about that.

And that is someone that is married and I could not imagine keeping that from my husband. And it was even interesting when I was pregnant and went to my first appointment with my OBG and he said, don't worry, I won't tell your husband. And I was like, no, no, the whole world knows. It's fine. My husband obviously knows. But he's like, if your husband doesn't know, I won't. We'll have a code word. That's interesting. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

But didn't the doctor want to stop the transmission to either your new baby or your husband? So that doesn't make sense. Blindness doesn't help. Right. But correct. There's so many partnerships that someone's in the dark. Someone doesn't know. And I've talked to thousands and thousands of people, and a lot of people will say,

But I'm too far into the relationship now. I can't come out with it or I only get outbreaks once every five years. So I just kind of, you know, hide it every five years.

I, I've talked to so many people that they're in monogamous relationships. They're going through a stressful time. Maybe a baby was born or, um, you know, they're moving or whatever, or people just go through a divorce all of a sudden and they find out they have herpes and they're like, but I was in a 30 year monogamous marriage. I just decided to go, you know, get, my doctor said, let's test you. And I ended up getting, how did I have this?

Or marriages are like, my wife's pregnant. I have genital herpes all of a sudden. I've been monogamous. I've been with my wife for 15 years. How did this happen? Those conversations cannot be easy. No.

No. And, and here, here's how this can happen. Either the, the, the other spouse had it and never disclosed. So that's one way, or this is the interesting thing about herpes. It can lie dormant in our system for years, for decades before you have, it manifests before you have your first outbreak. I talked to a woman that was in, it was 80 years old. Her husband had been deceased for 15 years. She had her first outbreak and she's like, I've only been with my husband. Oh my goodness.

Uh-huh. My husband's been- Oh, that's like a double heartbreak. Thanks. Yes. Right. Right. You know, and here you're 80 and you're getting a genital outbreak. Like, you know, so it happens more often than that we're aware of, but nobody talks about it. You know, if you as a female have breast cancer, your neighbors come over with a casserole and say, how can I help you? Right. Right.

Nobody says, how can I help you with genital herpes? Obviously, you were being promiscuous and living a deviant lifestyle. I don't want to be associated with that. It's that judgmental and stigmatized? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So let's say you're starting a dating relationship. And many relationships these days start in middle age. Somebody's been married, had their children. There's a divorce. They go back into middle age. Let's go with that scenario at the moment. So you meet someone.

And it hasn't yet moved to the intimate stage. Is there a good or a better time to bring this up so it isn't stark? I have a couple of thoughts on the whole middle age. And what happens with the middle aged is at this point, we're not worried about pregnancy. So before, and we have this concept of, oh, STDs are for the college kids.

STDs are for, you know, everyone that's kind of hooking up at bars. They're not for me because I'm going to be monogamously dating. Okay. So that's the whole, you know, people that come out of a marriage, they're like, oh, but that's not for me. So that's the first kind of concept that happens or it's been so long since we've had this conversation. It's just, it's not part of my life. So that's one of the big things that happens. Yeah.

But when we're speaking about when do we have the conversation, how do we have the conversation, my advice is figure out what you want. Are you wanting something really casual? Are you wanting something more of a serious long-term relationship? Because it's important that you set your own expectations and you set your own boundaries.

If you're wanting something casual, then it's just make it casual because if it's casual, what's kind of the difference if the rejection happens? Like it wasn't going to go anywhere anyways. It was going to terminate anyways at some point. So make it casual. Just open up and say, you know, have you been tested for STIs or STDs? I still use the word STD as well. Yeah, STI doesn't come as easily to me because I think we were taught –

STDs are reported to the health authorities and it's a really big deal and it goes on your permanent record. And part of that fear mongering is probably why people aren't talking about it and the stigma and the shame are still there. Exactly. Exactly.

So, right. And so, so, so people are so early earlier on, or you said, if you keep it casual, if you keep it casual, just open up and say, look, you know, or I just recently got tested. I'm interested in something casual. I'm negative for these STIs. I'm positive for this one, which is herpes. Here's what I'm doing to protect you and myself. Do you know your status? And you can just make it really casual in that situation. Yeah.

If it's something that you're looking for more of a relationship, a partnership, a dating situation, a foundation, then create that foundation first. Decide if this person is even worth opening up to. In so many cases, we think, oh my gosh, I'm going on my second date and I have to disclose.

No, you don't have to disclose. I don't think anyone knows they're serious after the second date, but okay. Right. Exactly. And, and, you know, there's so many things that we have to remember our, our partner, our future partner, he or she has something that needs to be disclosed to you as well. And so we go into this as,

oh my gosh, I'm carrying the scarlet letter. I'm carrying this thing of leprosy. I'm going to disclose in a way of asking for forgiveness in my disclosure. So it's almost like, please, will you accept me?

opposed to coming at it as, yes, this is what I have. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about our relationship. What is it? What are your intentions? I think it's better to start off like, where are we at? What do we want to do? Again, I mentioned in the beginning, what are our, what are your intentions? Are you wanting to be monogamous? Are you wanting this to be long-term? Are you seeing it going in a direction that's exciting to you? Then that needs to be discussed.

Well, that's a great way to get that part out because that's often a roadblock to even know the status of where the other person is when you feel one way and you don't know how they feel. Exactly. And the older I get and the more that I talk to the younger generation and all those things, I mean, in my opinion, there's no reason to rush into sex. It is so intimate. It is so personal.

It talk to this person and see what do you guys, are you on the same page with this? This one woman in my group, I loved it. She's like, I call it the Fs. And she's like, are we on the same page with food? Are we on the same page with faith? Are we on the same page with friendships? Are we on the same page with fun? You know, all these things. And, and if these things agree, then let's go to the whole conversation about STDs and herpes. That's smart. Yeah.

Because it puts you out there in steps. Exactly. And you feel on a stronger foundation if you have some of those basics understood and clarified before you blurt out your deepest, darkest secret. Right. And I use the picture of we've all seen the commercial.

of, you know, a woman on a diet and, you know, she has a scale that is, you know, attached to her ankle and she's dragging the scale with her and, you know, she goes by an ice cream shop and then she goes, you know, and she goes along her day. And it's, they probably don't air these commercials anymore, but we've, we've seen it. Yes. Right. And I'm like, herpes is not a chain and ball attached to you.

You don't need to bring it with you on your date. You don't need to bring it with you when you go for coffee. You don't need to bring it with you when you're walking on the beach. You have fun with this date and have fun. Enjoy him or her and, like, are you guys on the same page? Mm-hmm. So assuming you get on the same page and you have acceptance, are there ways to mitigate –

giving it to someone else. Absolutely. The number one thing is communication. Now the virus doesn't care really who it goes to. It doesn't care if you're tall, if you're short, if you're, you know, 50 years old, 15 year olds, 80 years old, it doesn't care. But if you're communicating number one with your partner, I don't mean just the communication of, I have herpes, but the communication of

you know, I'm feeling like a sensation's coming on. We're going to have to back off today. And if you don't feel comfortable having that conversation, you might just kind of go with it and like cross your fingers and hope that your partner doesn't get it. And that's where a lot of transmissions occur is when there's not that communication there. So that's one. The next is if you want to, you can take an antiviral. It's prescribed to you by your doctor, at least in the United States.

And it's Valtrex, Valcyclovir, Acyclovir, and they're an antiviral you can take. It lessens the transmission by 48%. It is quite effective in preventing this transmission. So if that's something you want to do, you can take that. You don't have to take that.

Um, if you don't wish to, but it does help using a condom can help with the transmission, but it's 30 to 50%. And the reason why is we have this idea that herpes is going to be right there on your genitals.

And herpes can be, genital herpes can be anywhere in that boxer region. It can be below your belly button. It can be on your inner thigh. It can be behind your hamstring. It can be, so you may be using a condom, but if it's on, you know, your inner thigh, it

that area is still going to be exposed to your partner. So those are some things to think about. And then lastly, if you want to go more the natural route, there's some supplements that you can take that are very helpful in preventing the replication of the virus. So you can do all of these things, or you can do one or two. What I like to say is,

Every relationship is different. Every relationship is going to have a different idea. If your partner already has one type of herpes, let's say your partner says, let's say you have HSV-2 and your partner's like, oh, I get cold sores. I have HSV-1. That person's going to have a higher immunity to picking up HSV-2 because they already have the antibodies for HSV-1 and typically your immune system will recognize it.

You can still get both types. Okay. You can still get both types, but like I have both types. Um, but if you're, if you have a good immune system, you'll, you'll probably, you know, um, repel the other type. It's so interesting because if you say the more natural route, are there supplements, are there natural substances that also act as a preventive? Exactly. And what are they? So there's a, uh,

protein. It's an essential amino acid. It's called L-lysine. And the counter, the opposite side is arginine, L-arginine. And they're both essential. We both need them. What arginine does is it fuels the herpes virus. It's like lighter fluid. It loves it.

And it's something we can't take out of our diet. Like I mentioned, it's essential. Arginine is great for cardiovascular health. So a lot of men will take arginine as a natural way for Viagra. And anyways, that fuels the herpes virus. On the flip side, the lysine helps block the arginine. It helps prevent the replication of it. It blocks it.

So you can kind of look at lessening the arginine in your diet. You can't get rid of it and lessen it. And you can eat higher lysine and you can even look at taking some lysine supplements. There's another one called monolaurin, which is, or its natural form is lauric acid. It's found in human breast milk.

And it's what helps prevent babies from who don't have immune systems. It helps them break down bacteria and viruses in their body. And it basically dissolves the outer shell of a virus, the enveloped virus. It helps disrupt that outer shell so our immune system can penetrate it. So there's a lot of natural supplements that can help with that as well. It's interesting because a lot of the vaccines have been shown recently to help

trigger, um, these types of, uh, conditions. And that's really on top of all the stress of the pandemic and everything else. So speak to that a little bit. You know, I had a lot during the pandemic, I had a lot of people that would come to me. Like, like we've, I had previously said, they're like, I'm in a monogamous relationship. How, how was it that I have herpes now? And it would come out, Hey, I just got vaccinated. Um,

And it, it, it, for whatever reason was causing herpes that either people that knew they had herpes and that was causing outbreaks, it was dormant or people that didn't know they have herpes. And all of a sudden it popped up in their life and now, now it's active. It woke it up. Great. Awesome. Well, you know, I think it's interesting too, that you mentioned the, the doctor was asking if, you know, to keep it quiet and,

I know that many friends of mine, not specifically about herpes, but if they're talking about sex or other things with their OBGYNs, some of them are very uncomfortable talking about intimacy at all. And it depends on the generation, I'm sure. But it's also...

to have a frank discussion with someone who's clearly cringing at you or uncomfortable. And so, you know, obviously it's very important to learn how to reduce the transmission risks. And it sounds as though you have figured out how to live life with herpes and not let it control you because there's so much fear involved.

everywhere these days. We just talked about the pandemic raised a lot of fear and additional health conditions. Everybody wants to be healthy or most people want to be healthy. They aren't always willing to do the work to be there, but they want to. So in this case, it would be especially good

To be eating properly, keep a strong immune system, get your rest, and to know what are your triggers if you do get cold sores or general herpes outbreaks. So how do you encourage people to do that?

So what I don't want to happen is I don't want people to go into the opposite direction of, oh my gosh, I can't eat anything and I can't do anything because it might trigger an outbreak. I look at it as let's get to know our body and let's get to know what triggers it and what does not trigger it. So when I was 20 years old, I got HSV-1 oral.

And, um, I went on a date and my date kissed me with a cold sore. So got that, but I didn't have my second outbreak until I was 34. So it was dormant for a long time. 14 years. And I lived my life. It never impacted my life. Um, I never, it never popped up until the week before my wedding. Of course. Awesome. Great.

So in that case, so there's many people that are like that. It pops up really rarely. So stress is a big trigger. Huge trigger.

And so people think, oh my gosh, I can't, I can't eat this. I can't eat peanuts. I can't have nuts. I can't have chocolate. I can't go out with my friends. Is there a connection to nuts or chocolate? Uh-huh. They're high in arginine, specifically peanuts for so many people. Interesting. They'll, they'll like, I have friends that are like, oh, I was at a party and I was eating the trail mix. I didn't even realize it. And then there was peanuts in there. And I, I like, I had to run out of the party because I immediately felt one coming on. Yeah.

So, so it's, look at it. There might be, again, I can use myself for oral herpes and there was nothing that triggered it. And then genital herpes, it felt like the wind blew the wrong way. I would get an outbreak until I kind of got it under control. And so it, it really is, is bad.

learning your body and learning to see what's going on. And there's, you know, you can do acupuncture, you can, you know, doing mild exercise, you know, all sorts of things can be so helpful in boosting your immune system. Exactly. So is there a prophylaxis that you can use on a continuous basis if you tend to get a lot of these or is it mostly a spot help?

Uh, you can take the antiviral daily as a prophylactic. If, if you wish it would be 500 milligrams of the Valtrex or Valcyclovir, if that's something you want to do. And that does a really great job at keeping it at bay. And it does a great job at keeping it away. If that's, if, if, if that's, if you're getting so many outbreaks, you're like, I can't handle it. And I, or I'll tell my college kids, I'm like, Hey, if it's finals week, don't play around. Just it,

If you want to take the antiviral, take it. If you're an accountant and it's tax season, don't worry about, oh, well, if I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at midnight because I'm working, I might get an... Stop. Right. It's a time in your life and be aware of it. Don't let it control you. Be in control of it, but be aware. I love to use the example.

You buy your house and all of a sudden you decide to have a roommate move in to help you with the mortgage and your roommate throws a party and has pizza and doesn't take out the trash. And so you have to set rules for your new roommate. This virus has moved into your body and is like, I'm going to have outbreaks. I'm going to throw a party. You're stressed out over tax season. Well, guess what? I'm going to have an outbreak right now. Right? So,

I'm picturing that Mucinex commercial with that grumbly guy that comes out. Do you know the one I'm talking about? Yes. I just laugh at that. But, you know, thank you for this information because I think this is very important. I think there's a lot of people for whom it's a sleeper issue. They don't discuss it, but they have it. And they just don't know these facts. I want to make sure they know to go to your website, lifewithherpes.com. Hmm.

and you also have a podcast and you just have provided enormous information. I did not know about some of the other triggers like the peanuts and the chocolate, the supplements, and there's, there's ways to live with it, but I like your attitude the best. It's just one aspect of your life. It's, it's, it's,

Everybody has something in their life they're not proud of. Everybody has something in their life that they view as a handicap. And it's up to you if you're going to overcome it or if you're going to succumb to it.

Amen. I just appreciate your candid nature talking about this. And I knew this was going to be this way because this is how every correspondence that we have had is just exactly like this. So thank you, Alexandra. Go to lifewithherpes.com and find out more. Thank you for coming today and sharing your experiences. Thank you for tuning in today. You can find more shows at wisehealthforwomenradio.com.