Full disclosure and taking responsibility

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Life With Herpes Podcast

Welcome to episode 37 of Life With Herpes - I am thrilled to be sharing this time with you, thank you for joining me.

 

You may have read the title of today’s episode and thought what in the world do herpes and lice have in common?! I'm sure you want to know why I'd put these two together and have a show about them, so let me tell you on episode 37 of Life With Herpes.

More About Life With Herpes

The topic for today came to mind because this summer I have dealt with lice, twice! If you don’t know what lice are they are little bugs that live in your hair, and they lay eggs called nits. Nits are typically the size of a grain of rice, and they typically blend into your hair.

 

The problem with lice is that it goes everywhere. Like the herpes virus, lice want to survive so they lay as many eggs as possible in as many places as possible. They will go into your sheets, your pillows, your sofa, your hair brush and hair ties, your clothes - you get the idea.

 

And they are transferred to other people who sit on your sofa or use your pillows or your hair ties, etc. Because they are so easily transferred and live in so many places, they are

nearly impossible to get rid of! Even when you remove lice from your own body, if the eggs are in other areas where you spend time you'll get them again.

 

But what do lice and herpes have in common? For starters, we don't always disclose we have either of them, and because of that they continue to spread. We're too embarrassed to talk about having lice or herpes so other people get them because we don't tell them we have either one.

 

Our response to having lice or herpes is pretty similar. When someone in my household got lice I freaked! I didn't want to deal with it and deal with trying to get it out of my very long hair or anywhere else in the house.

 

I also felt panicked when I was diagnosed with herpes, and that feeling lingered until I learned more and educated myself about herpes.

I applied the same approach to lice: I found out they have lice clinics and they check your head, and if you have it, they help you get rid of it.

 

It’s much the same with herpes: you think you may have been exposed to the virus so you go to the clinic and get checked out. If you have it they tell you how to deal with the virus, and how to avoid spreading it.

 

Tweetable: “Full disclosure would reduce herpes being spreading to more people.” - Alexandra Harbushka

And with both lice and herpes full disclosure is needed and very important. That's what I want to stress to you: have a full disclosure with your current partner (or partners) and your past partners. I'm 100% adamant about telling your partner if you are sexually active, it is the right thing to do and it will take a weight off your shoulders.

 

With herpes when you talk about it with your partner it gives them the opportunity to choose to have sex with you while taking necessary precautions. They know they may contract the virus even with those precautions, but they are making the choice to do so. If they aren't given that choice and they do get the virus that opens a whole other can of worms.

 

Think about: if you weren't given the choice when you contracted herpes, wouldn't you want that opportunity if you could do it all over again? Since most of us with herpes weren’t given the choice I’m guessing a lot of us would answer yes to that question.

 

Whatever your answer is I want to hear from you. Let me know in the private Slack group, after you listen to episode 37 of Life With Herpes.

Episode Resources

• The Herpes Crisis Toolkit (use the promo code PODCAST)
• Life With Herpes Website
• Join The Life With Herpes Community
• DoTerra’s essential oils