What looks like genital herpes? Genital herpes can be confused with several ailments. Here is a list of genital herpes like diseases.

Yeast infection | Syphylis | Lichen Sclerosus | Impetigo | Atopic Dermatitis | Other skin condtions

What looks like genital herpes? Candidasis or Yeast infection

Genital herpes is often confused with yeast or candida. They both can cause redness, swelling, itchiness and burning….In the case of yeas t infection, it is small fungi called Candida Albicans that cause the infection not the herpes virus. Candidasis can sometimes cause blisters. To tell you the truth I mixed up my first herpes episode with candidasis. It’s only when I saw that the usual candida medicines were making things worse that I realized it was something else.

What looks like genital herpes? Syphilis

Syphilis is another sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by a bacterium called Treponema pallidum. It can also be passed from mother to infant during pregnancy (congenital syphilis) and transmitted in other rare occasions. Although primary and secondary syphilis in the United States declined by almost 90 percent from 1990 to 2000, the number of cases rose from 5,979 in 2000 to 7,352 in 2004

Primary Syphilis first sage symptoms include swollen glands and painless small ulcers usually located near the genital area that disappear in 3 weeks. If not treated syphilis may move to its second stage and cause a rash covering parts of the body or the entire body. It usually appears 4 to 10 weeks after the first stage symptoms. Other common symptoms include sore throat, fatigue, headache, and swollen lymph glands, less frequent symptoms include flu like symptoms, weight loss, hair loss, aching joints, or sores in the mouth or genital area. So syphilis looks like genital herpes mostly at its second stage. More generally, syphilis is very often confused with other ailments. After the second stage, syphilis may remain in a latent state and becomes less contagious or repeat another second stage infection. If left untreated, syphilis will move to its third and final stage and damage many organs resulting in mental illness, blindness, deafness, memory loss or other neurological problems, heart disease, and death. Syphilis can be treated with penicillin or other antibiotics. Untreated syphilis can be fatal.

What looks like genital herpes? Lichen Sclerosus

Lichen sclerosus is a painful skin condition that typically affects the vulva (or penis) and anus. It is not a contagious and touches mostly women. Small white spots may appear early in the disease that develop into bigger patches as the skin surface becomes thinned and crinkled. Lichen Sclerosus may also cause itching and/or burning, painful sexual intercourse, and sores or lesions resulting from scratching. It may look like genital herpes at its early stage.

What looks like genital herpes? Impetigo

Impetigo mainly affects children on the face, especially around a child’s nose and mouth and on the hands. But it can also affect adults in the genital area. It is a common but highly contagious bacterial skin infection. It is caused by either streptococcus A or staphylococcus aureus. Streptococcus A usually produces redness, blisters or sores and forms a yellowish brown crust. Staphylococcus aureus tends to trigger larger fluid-filled blisters that don’t usually burst. The disease is highly contagious, and scratching or touching the sores is likely to spread the infection to other parts of the body as well as to other people. That’s how adults may become infected in genital areas

What looks like genital herpes? Atopic Dematitis

Atopic dermatitis is often referred to as eczema. But eczema has broader meaning than atopic dermatitis. Atopic dermatitis is not contagious and touches mostly young children and may improve with age but can be found in any age groups. Several people of the same family are usually affected. Exact causes of atopic dermatitis are not exactly known and consist in a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors Even though symptoms may differ in different people, most people have acute flares with inflamed, red, sometimes blistered and weepy patches that recur from time to time or that can become chronic.

Other types of eczema include allergic contact eczema, neurodermatitis, seborrheic eczema and nummular eczema. Most of them have some symptoms in common with genital herpes, like itchiness, redness and burning.

What looks like genital herpes? Other Skin conditions

Sometimes genital herpes is confused with spider bites, mosquito bites, acne and other allergic reactions. Genital herpes blisters usually burst within a few days and are extremely fragile which is not the case in other skin ailments. However genital herpes may cause atypical symptoms that may be confused with skin allergic reactions and acne.

In conclusion: The way genital herpes looks may resemble many other skin conditions. Sometimes even a specialist has to run a swab test to be sure.
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