What is the genital herpes incubation period?

The genital herpes incubation period is essentially the timeframe from the time genital herpes infection starts to the time visible symptoms begin to develop.

The incubation period is the most difficult to detect because symptoms only show up later.

How long is it and symptoms?

The genital herpes incubation period lasts anywhere from two days to as long as ten days. During this time, the person would have been contracting genital herpes but is not aware of it because of lack of any visible symptoms on the skin.

However, during the genital herpes incubation period a host of other symptoms may develop such as fever, flu symptoms, headaches, pain in the muscles, nausea as well as a sense of fatigue.

In women, there could be excessive amounts of vaginal discharge as well as intense genital herpes pain. Sometimes cold sores and genital herpes symptoms like small bumps around the mouth area can also be seen.

Shedding stage

The most contagious stage of genital herpes infection is when the HSV or Herpes Simplex Virus replicates itself on the skin surface. This process is called shedding and represents the most infectious stage.

During this stage, the virus is shedding rapidly on the skin surface and thus other persons can easily be contracting genital herpes without them knowing it!

Methods of spreading

The genital herpes incubation period is so unpredictable and unnoticeable that the genetal herpes infection can easily spread to other persons.

If you have open lesions on the skin, which are infected you could spread genital herpes infection through kissing, skin contact, oral sex, anal or even vaginal sex methods.

Basically any open lesions coming into contact with an uninfected person is enough to cause genital herpes outbreak in the other individual.

Unpredictable symptoms

One of the main reasons why it is so difficult to diagnose symptoms during the genital herpes incubation period is because of the unpredictable nature of symptoms. Most symptoms occurring during this stage resemble other diseases.

For example, the person may experience fever and flu, headaches, nausea, muscle pain etc., which can easily be considered to be some other disease.

In women, excessive discharge of vaginal fluids could entail a yeast infection or some other condition like pelvis inflammation, cervicitis or even urinary tract infection!

This is one of the main reasons why so many qualified health care practitioners are not able to diagnose the presence of genetal herpes during the genital herpes incubation period.

The next stage

It is only when the visible symptoms develop after the genital herpes incubation period ends, that diagnosis becomes feasible. In this later stage, symptoms such as small red blisters, bumps and sores around the mouth develop.

This is when you need to approach a health care professional and get yourself tested for genital herpes infection.

These health care professionals have the necessary equipment and will perform clinical tests to ascertain if you have the genitle herpes infection or not.

Going to a health care provider during the genital herpes incubation period is of no use because it will usually end in a misdiagnosis.