I was diagnosed over 30 years ago with Genital Herpes. For the first 20 years I would have out breaks MAYBE once or twice a year and they were always restricted to my vaginal area. They were bad at first...and would last more than 3 weeks.

Since I have passed menopause (I started Menopause at the age of 38 and finished before I was 43) I rarely get vaginal outbreaks and when I say rarely I mean more than a year between a vaginal episode. Instead of vaginal outbreaks I get outbreaks that seem to be centered around my chin/neck area and more recently it feels as if I have an outbreak that is internal to my head.. under my skin along with the neck/chin lesions.

In the past two years these head outbreaks have been quite debilitating. All of the flu/cold like symptoms are the same however the headaches and fatigue and general pain are hard to bear but none are like the outbreak I have been experiencing for the past 3 weeks. This most recent outbreak followed probably the most stressful 6 weeks of my life and started like a bad cold with a stuffy nose and a horrible sore throat however within a few hours the fluid filled tiny spots on my chin showed up as well as some on my neck then after a few days it felt like it went internal. Inside my windpipe and under my skull. I thought a couple of days ago that it was finally over but then the sneezing started and the stuffy nose came back and now I have a new spot under my tongue and what feels like behind my eye.

I am an engineer and I have to say I am noticing that I don't feel as mentally sharp as I use to be and it seems like after these episodes that gets worse. I was considering going to my GP but he's pretty useless so am wondering if I should just go to him and ask for a neuro referral. I was also going to ask for an MRI. I had an MRI to look for aneurysms about 8 years ago because I have a VERY strong family history of berry aneurysm (Aunts, mother and grandmother all died of complications from them rupturing) The MRI showed that I have no communicating arteries, or none that would show up on a very high quality MRI but it also showed a few small lesions or white spots on my brain and I wonder if there is any change in those or if there are more.

Will the neurologist laugh at me for going to him/her about herpes?